Collaboration For the Win! Bringing "Big Kid" Science to KG

Kindergarten students figuring out the microscope!

Kindergarten students figuring out the microscope!

Guest co-writer:  Tiffany Hill @tifftado

The time has come to close the loop on the collaborative project between my 11th grade IB biology class and Tiffany Hill's kindergarten class.  Back in February, Tiffany and I discovered that my 11th grade biology students and her kindergarten students were studying similar topics.  My students were learning about cellular respiration in yeast and her students were planning on baking bread as a culminating activity for their unit on wheat (see video below).  Talk about coincidence!  We decided that it would be great if my students could create a video to teach her kids about how yeast contributed to the rising of bread through a couple of science demos, and then ask them for help on a science experiment that they could engage in while baking their bread.  Incidentally, this also tied in with their upcoming measurement and visualizing data units in KG. 

In a previous post, Going Back to Kindergarten, ​I talked about this project from our end in the "big school".  Today, Tiffany sent me her class's video response to our project.  I happened to get the e-mail right before my 11th grade biology class today, so without previewing it, I shared all of this five year old yummy goodness with my class.  They LOVED it...too much...in fact they all whined for about 10 minutes about how they want to go back to kindergarten.  To be completely honest, so do I, and not just because they get donuts for snack time!  The video below explains our project from KG's perspective.

​My favorite quotes: 

"​Dump it in there, BOYFRIEND" (I don't think that would fly with my 11th graders)

"Are we gonna draw it on the paper because that's what real scienstists do...(in case you didn't hear me) REAL SCIENSTISTS DO THAT!"  ​

Collaborating with Rory on this project was such an awesome learning experience for my students and myself.  It was excellent timing that our classes happened to be doing units with such easy connections. Thank goodness for WWW (Women, Wine, and Wednesdays...not necessarily in that order) for allowing us to make these connections!  Having the big kids ask KG students for help made them feel really special and it set a natural purpose for their inquiry.  This project was the perfect fit not only to our PYP Unit of Inquiry, "How we Organize Ourselves", but also to our math units of measurement and data collection.   When I reflect upon the way I taught this exact same sequence of explorations last year and compare it to this year I am over the moon at how this one day allowed for so much exposure and  knowledge growth. The integration of technology was a huge plus as well.  I am very excited to repeat this project next year and I look forward to inviting my colleagues to be on board!

- Tiffany Hill ​-

This project was so successful on both fronts that we are definitely planning to expand it to include both sections of biology and all of the KG next year.  Thanks to technology,  even if our units don't align in the future, my students can prepare the video in advance so that it will be ready for kindergarten when they need it!  Win - Win!  Tiffany, if you are reading this, next year, we expect to at least get some bread and maybe some chocolate donuts out of this for all of our hard work!   ​

One of these kids is not so interested in putting the bread in the cupboard to rise. Yummmmmm  donuts!

One of these kids is not so interested in putting the bread in the cupboard to rise. Yummmmmm  donuts!

Technology Taboo: A Review Game for the 1:1 Classroom

It's that time of the year again.  IB exams are just around the corner, the results from mock exams are in, and the data tells me that I need to start reviewing yesterday!  A couple of years ago, I adapted the popular game Taboo for my 1:1 laptop classroom.  It is by far the best review game that I have in my toolbox. The students accidentally get three revision opportunities in one game, all while having a great time.

Genetics Taboo

Genetics Taboo

Game Prep:

Students ​are divided into pairs to create a collaborative Google presentation of taboo word slides from a predetermined word/ topic list.  This forces them to learn (relearn, review) the definition, and then carefully select the most important aspects of the definition in order to identify their taboo words.  Revision opportunity #1...CHECK!

Game On: ​

In the next class, partners are pitted against another pair in fierce competition.  No really,  they really get into this.  Each group of four has two laptops, one per pair.  Each pair then shares their presentation with the other group in view/presentation mode. Partners are seated opposite each other and next to an opponent from the other pair. One person in a pair, the "giver", tries to get his/her partner to guess the vocabulary words by describing the terms without using the taboo words.  Since I teach science, I require them to use science terms only, or the opposing team can assign penalty points.  This prevents them from giving hints like Coke to get their teammate to guess pepsin.  Remember this is a review game.  Revision opportunity #2... CHECK! Meanwhile the partner tries to guess the vocabulary term from the clues.  Revision opportunity #3...CHECK!  The opponent sitting next to the giver watches over the giver's taboo words looking for opportunities to call penalties, while the opponent sitting diagonal to the giver keeps track of the time. 

Once the round is over, points are tallied based on the number of terms that were guessed correctly in the time limit minus the penalties.  The teams then switch roles and the other team takes a turn with the giver/guesser roles.  When the round is over and it switches back to the first team, the giver and the guesser switch roles by passing the computer and the opponents assume their respective roles.  ​

For a complete list of the rules and instructions that I use with my students, check out this link.  ​

If you don't have access to laptops in your classroom, you should check out this version of Taboo that my review-game obsessed colleague, Jason Roy, posted to my Pinboard the other day.  ​He also has some great review game ideas on his site, CrispyMath.  My favorite so far is Danger Cards, as it can easily be adapted to other disciplines. 
You might also want to check out Jeopardy Labs online templates.  This is another big hit with my students, and all you need is a projector and a computer. 

What are your go-to review games? 

Redos and Retakes? Management Strategies for that Endless Pile of Grading

Screenshot 4:1:13 8:30 PM.jpeg

I participated in the #sbgchat on Twitter a few days ago and the topic was redos and retakes.  It was a great discussion, and you should definitely check out the archive on Storify.  On simple grading tasks like quizzes or tests, this is a no brainer if you use standards-based approach to learning in your class.  If they haven't met the standard, how can you not give them an opportunity to reach it?  However, the waters get a little murkier when those long assessments like essays and labs start to pile up and then pile up again and again.  ​There is an element of time that has to be taken into consideration. After all, there are only 24 hours in a day.  In fact, I am writing this as I procrastinate grading a stack of labs that I will be looking at for the second and for some the third time before sending them off to IB for moderation.  A few people voiced this concern in the chat, but interestingly enough, when I went back to offer a suggestion to one of the participants, her tweet had mysteriously disappeared.  Was she shamed into retraction in the face of all of the enthusiastic responses championing the redo?  Perhaps, or maybe she was just having a day like I am today...drowning under a pile of labs with no end in sight!   Feeling Anonymous's pain, ​I am going to share some strategies that I use in class to cut back on the regrading. 

Strategy #1: ​Todaysmeet

First and foremost, you must have a culture of trust and collaboration in your classroom coupled with strong formative assessment practices. One strategy that has worked well for me in the past is to ask for a volunteer from the class to present their lab to the class for feedback.  Students usually LOVE to do this, as it is a safe environment to get some feedback before they have to submit their "final" write-up.  While the student presents, I have the rest of the class use Todaysmeet as a backchannel for commenting and asking questions during the presentation with me monitoring the conversation.  Since labs are divided into separate sections, we stop after each key piece and then discuss as a class, and review the chat.  I then give students about 5 minutes to make notes on their own labs.  Here is a link to the specifics of running a Todaysmeet backchannel in class, including examples from one of my lab sessions. 

Strategy #2:  Collaborative Team Docs

When I have students work in groups to design a lab, I have them peer edit in teams.  If I have three groups then Team 1 shares their collaborative lab with all of the members of Team 2, Team 2 Shares with Team 3, and Team 3 shares with Team 1, and of course they all share with me so that I can monitor while they are working on their peer edits.  All students are required to comment on the docs.  I give each team a lab checklist and a series of question prompts to guide them through their peer edit.  Then as a group they read through the other teams lab and make suggestions using the comment function on Google docs.  While monitoring, I will occasionally pipe in if necessary to redirect, or point out something that they have missed.  Though it is great to get feedback from a fresh pair of eyes (or three or four), the real benefit of this strategy is that every time they find an error on another group's lab, they reflect on their own lab and secretly (or so they think) they make edits on their own lab as they go through this process.  I also strategically pair up a model group with one that seems to be struggling so that the weaker group can see what a well written lab design looks like.  Here is a screenshot from one of these CTD sessions. 

Screenshot 4:1:13 8:15 PM.jpeg

Strategy #3:  First Come First Serve

...or the early birds get the feedback :-)  I take the first five labs submitted before the deadline and give them a once over.  I then hand them back with my comments for revision, but in addition, I create a general comments list comprised of common mistakes and omissions that I share with students on Google docs.  I then take about fifteen minutes in class to walk them through some ​of the general errors that I found and give them some time to make notes on their own labs. I then extend the deadline by a couple of days and direct the students to our Facebook group if they have any questions while they are working through some last minute errors that they discovered on their own labs.  By doing this, student are forced to start to recognize errors on their own, which pays off in the end when they are writing up subsequent labs.  I find that if they only correct errors that I point out while grading, they tend to make the same errors over and over again. This helps to cut back on this recurrence. 

Regardless, I still do my fair share of regrading.  In fact one of the labs in my dropbox at the moment is labeled "Final, Final, FINAL Hydrilla lab".  I guess I better get back to it.   ​

Student Learning: A 21st Century Sci-Fi E-book

Googling.jpg

Remember when? This pic showed up in my Facebook feed this morning and it sent waves of terrifying flashbacks through me.  Incidentally, my mother was a school librarian, so you can imagine.  My heart started to race, my eyes opened wide...well maybe that was the coffee.  Either way, this is the form of "Googling" that I grew up with.  In fact, I immediately Googled card catalog images... and wished that I hadn't...back to the photo.  The reference card the girl in the picture picks up will most likely lead her to a book or research article with outdated information based on research carried out in a similar fashion. There will be no rapid connections made pointing her in new directions without opening a new drawer and sifting through a stream of unrelated or outdated resource references.  When I think about how I access information today, it doesn't even compare.  Imagine if the girl in the photo found out that within a couple of minutes, she could sift through endless volumes of current, relevant information, and contact experts across the globe to learn the information that she seeks without ever leaving her computer or picking up her land line phone.  At best it would be the makings of a great sci-fi tale, a Farenheit 451 or 1984 if you will.  Though this futuristic account of card catalogs would be frightening indeed, imagine if the situation were reversed and the sci-fi novel told a decidedly harrier tale, the disappearance of the Internet as we know it and a return to card catalogs and geographical isolation.   

This made me think about how we structure learning for our students.  ​In my last post about problem finders, I talked about Ewan McIntosh's design thinking school, NoTosh.  In his blog post about problem finders, Ewan states, " Teachers, for too long, have actually been doing the richest work of learning for their students. Teachers find problems, frame them and the resources young people can use to solve them. Young people get a sliver of learning from coming up with ideas, based on some basic principles upon which the teacher has briefed them, and the teacher then comes back on the scene to run the whole feedback procedure." 

Now I am going to make the assumption that all of you reading this blog exist on the tech savvy side of the learning continuum.  You are after all reading blogs on the Internet, and some of you were directed here from some form of social media or RSS feed.  As a teacher, do you define your own problems or does someone else find them for you?  Does someone else supply you with your resources for learning or do you discover them on your own? 

When asked why we do so much of the legwork for our students in terms of finding and framing problems and identifying resources, we usually respond that we don't have enough time, or they aren't good at it.  If that is the case, then isn't that the one skill that we SHOULD be teaching our students ?  As teachers, we need to reprogram our card catalog habits.  I propose that we write our own sci-fi novel; one where students are empowered to discover, research, and solve problems through prototyping using their special powers of information fluency and critical thinking.  

SPOILER ALERT:  In the end, these superheroes reverse global warming, cure cancer along with a host of terrifying diseases, bring peace to the Middle East, and force Justin Bieber and boy bands into obsolescence.  Well at least that is what would happen if I was the author. 

On that note, it is spring break and I am going to give this disappearing Internet fantasy a go! ​