Elevate.

Hello, colleagues!

I'm going to share an idea that I had this week that I'm pretty excited about. Every spring, eighth grade American history teachers partner with their Language Arts teammate to do a Civil War research paper. We've done this for the past eight years that I have taught here, and it's a unit that just doesn't excite me. I don't hate the project, but I am not a fan of the content or the fact that the students create a research paper. Civil War technology is not compelling; I cannot get excited about it in any capacity (and it includes photography, and I LOVE photography). I also don't want to grade 110 research essays after I've already had the students write three analytical essays throughout the year.

Every year I want to elevate the project. I'm not trying to make it better, but am more focused on creating something that works for my students and for myself. The lightbulb went off this week when I was thinking about my Google Innovator project. I decided that I wanted to do a "trial run" with this unit. If I do or do not become a Google Innovator, I believe in character education and want to continue to elevate my content.

So my plan is to have the students research a person from the American Civil War.

They will investigate the person and find a characteristic best demonstrated by this individual.

I then want the students to take this personality feature and try to emulate it in some sort of genius hour project. My thought is that it will lead to community building, whether in the classroom, in the school, or in the community of Colorado Springs. For example, say they choose Clara Barton who was a nurse. They pick the characteristic of selflessness. They emulate Clara Barton's selflessness by performing random acts of kindness for a stranger for a week. I'm still thinking this all through, but I want them to address my unit essential question: How can we emulate the best of the past? I'm also thinking about finding primary documents for them to access through Actively Learn, and they will continue with flipped learning.

This would only, however, take up my portion of the unit. So for my Language Arts counterpart, I was inspired by a colleague who sent me a Pinterest pin about a wax museum project. I asked my colleague if she would be interested in having the students research these people (together; we have a shared wall) then present their wax figure in her class. She just ate it up!

I tried to create an eclectic bunch of people to study because I'm hoping through this project that the students emulate the best of the past and also see themselves in history. I'm not sure if I could ask for anything more.

Thanks for reading. I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website

End of unit reflections

Hello, teachers! Sorry for the missing blog last week! I came down with a cold last Friday but felt the need to go photograph some beautiful frost in town that same day. I'm pretty sure I made myself sicker, so my mind was not ready for blogging last week :(

This morning I am reflecting on a unit that my classes completed on Friday. It was a four week unit over what I call the pre-Civil War era (1820s - 1859). For the first two weeks, students were put into large groups in which they "presented" a whole class lesson on a decade (purely giving content). For the last two weeks of the unit, the students worked individually in which they picked three events in one decade to dive "deeper" into. They used a tic-tac-toe board to pick the products that they wanted to create while also choosing the proficiency level that they wanted to demonstrate.

What worked: Most students enjoyed "teaching" for a whole class period (in a large group). They were nervous overall, but they shined in front of the class. This set them up for success in presenting in front of the whole class. I could tell that some students accessed their group presentation rubric as most students improved upon their eye contact and projection for their second presentation. I also liked that when students presented individually that they weren't required to show memorized content, but instead talked about what they created and how their events caused change (the essential question for the unit). This helped with their confidence and talking to their colleagues instead of just reading from the screen. I heard many students say that they enjoyed having a choice in their topic and product creation, and I felt having the tic-tac-toe board at this point in the year ensured the success as they were comfortable with choice (as opposed to the beginning of the year).

What didn't work: I liked the students taking on the class lesson piece, but I do not feel like I set up the students for success in their content presentations. This unit, more than any prior, made me realize how weak my students' research skills are. This could be a whole other blog topic - teaching students how to investigate on the internet. I don't feel like I train them well in this aspect, and to some extent, expect the students to come to eighth grade prepared with research skills. I know that this is wrong, and I know that my students don't know how to analyze and dive deeper online. Do I know how to teach the students to research on the internet? I'm not sure, but I feel like I need to scaffold their research better. Unfortunately, this means created focused research handouts for each topic. That is something I need to create over the summer if I want to do this unit again (and I know for sure that I do).

I need to, somehow, clean up my directions. I'm not clear if this was all on me, but my students were missing what they were supposed to DO for the second half of the unit. The students just wanted to regurgitate information, when I kept telling them to be persuasive; that they are trying to persuade someone to move to the historical location to ensure that the historical event happens (because, you know, they are time travelers). I know that when I go through their products that most of them will miss that mark.

One struggle (that I've dealt with in the past) is that the students want to make sure that they are doing the assignment "right," so they keep asking me how their product looks, they are checking in with me, and they are asking me questions. This prevented me from checking in with all of my students. I was also trying to get through their research handouts as they were working, but I could never find time. The missing feedback from me did not help the previous issue of my students repeating content instead of being persuasive.

And the BIGGEST problem with this unit is a student problem: time management. Even though I had checkpoints and due dates in place, they were not enough. The students put off their project until the last minute and then scrambled the night before presentations started. I told all of the students to be prepared to present on the first day, but in one class I had to go ask 19 students to present before I could find five students ready to go. I believe that next time I will have more stringent due dates and clearer time management strategies to ensure that their time management is on point. I heard many complaints that I gave too much homework, but it was evident that putting it off until the last minute meant that they had a lot of homework in one night! I wrote on the board how much time they had which effectively ended this complaint.

I had a frustrating week when it came to presentations, but in the end, I know that this was a solid first start to a new design for a unit. I am happy with what I created and am excited to "fix it" for next year!

Thanks for reading. I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website

Hello, colleagues! Sorry that time has gotten away from me, and it has been a few weeks - I meant to blog last week, but was not feeling well. I'm back to normal, and I'm back on my game! This week was a good week in the middle school world. I did a four-day lesson over the Constitution with some activities that I am excited to share with you.

As someone to teaches middle school American history, it is only fair that I present lessons with a neutral political discourse. My students do not need to know my political leanings, so I present both sides of the story. We are currently studying the Constitution, and in today's political climate, it is incredibly important for students to know what their rights are. They know that they have freedom of speech and the right to bear arms... and that's about it. I know that going through the Constitution bit by bit is incredibly annoying. What I did, instead, was utilize three different programs: Actively Learn, Socrative space race, and Adobe Spark Page.

I wanted the students to study the first three Articles of the Constitution, so I uploaded the Articles to Actively Learn with highlighted portions and questions built in (if you have an Actively Learn account, e-mail me at rbails@d49.org if you want a copy). It was my first time using Actively Learn, and I am now a fan. I've been asking myself why I haven't been using this earlier, especially considering other teachers have been touting how amazing it is. Using Actively Learn isn't any different than having the students read and answer questions, but it's just different. My students were incredibly engaged with the text and were focused during class. The students could not move on to the next question until they answered the previous question, and the students knew that the answer to the question was right above the question. I felt like Actively Learn is a great tool when it comes to primary documents or readings that may be difficult to understand or digest.

I'm not a teacher that needs silence in my classroom, but during Actively Learn, you could hear a pin drop.

The next part of the lesson was to have the students do a "space race" on Socrative. I have done these in the past, and have found that they are better than Kahoot. I would not say the students are more or less excited or engaged, but Socrative forces the students to get the answers correct instead of racing to respond to the question the quickest. I gave the students describing statements about the twenty-seven Amendments of the Constitution, and they had to figure out which Amendment was being described. Again, not a new or super interesting lesson, but the students were figuring out what the Constitution says. The students were engaged with the text and filled out a handout in Notability as they quizzed through Socrative.

The last part of the lesson was to have the students design a Spark Page (my example) about what IS in the Constitution. They took their learning from the previous two lessons and developed a "website" that is visual and compelling. I feel like the students are walking away from this week knowing more about the Constitution than they ever knew previously.

To culminate the Constitution lesson, next week, the students will be accessing the DBQ Project's document-based question "How did the Constitution guard against tyranny?" I have done this DBQ the past three years, and it is one of the toughest DBQs for the students to comprehend. It will be interesting to see if the students better grasp the essential question because of greater prior knowledge.

I have struggled with the Constitution unit every year that I have taught at Skyview. It just never turns out quite like I want. I feel like what I created this year was strong, and I will keep most of the lessons for next year. I think the students comprehended the ideas that I wanted, and I know that they were engaged with the ideas. I'm not sure I could ask more of teenagers learning about an 18th-century primary document.

Thanks for reading! I'll see you next week :) 

- Rachel
@historicalipad
My Teacherspayteachers website

What is rigor?

As I drink my coffee this Saturday morning, I'm reminded of a conversation I had with another teacher this week. This teacher and I were talking about another teacher that is a common acquaintance, and we were talking about how this teacher is a "brand new, baby" teacher. She has no teaching experience, but when the three of us were talking, this acquaintance was using all sorts of buzz words when talking about her future classroom.

When it was just the original teacher and myself together, we were talking about what this acquaintance had to say. The other teacher was frustrated that she was using buzz words, thinking that she was saying what we wanted to hear. She believes that this new teacher needs to teach content. She kept reiterating that she needs to teach RIGOROUS content.

I felt like she was insinuating that I do not teach rigorous content, nor does my team teach rigorous content. Is it because we teach with iPads? That's how it felt. I think she was alluding to the fact that she does not consider teaching 21st century skills or teaching in a project-based classroom teaching "rigor". I honestly think that she believes rigor is MORE.

That blew my mind, and inspired this post to talk about rigor. A quick Google search [What is rigor?] provides many results about rigor and education. This is a hot topic of which most of you are aware. I feel like Dr. Barbara Blackburn says it best,

"Rigor is creating an environment in which each student is expected to learn at high levels, and each is supported so he or she can learn at high level, and each student demonstrates learning at high level." (Blackburn, 2008).

Our job, as teachers, is to create a rigorous environment, create units and lesson that force students to learn at high levels, support students through those rigorous units and lessons, and provide choice for students to demonstrate their new learning. This can be done through traditional or new methods of teaching.

I know that when I started teaching with "new" methods, I was taking a risk. I was scared of failure and was embarrassed when I messed up. But in the end, risk taking transformed my teaching. My students were creating projects I considered insane (i.e. above and beyond 8th grade). I was proud of my students and was proud of the change in my classroom. I know that my students are going to have the same feelings (scared, frustrated, embarrassed) when they enter my classroom, but I hope that they are proud when they leave.

How is my curriculum rigorous?

• My students answer open-ended questions. Students are asked What is an individual's responsibility to a community? and What drives people to seek independence? Students have to answer these questions based on evidence from the historical era that they are studying. They have to make connections between past and present in order to see trends throughout time. 
• My students have to demonstrate their learning through various forms of media. They have created digital stories, infographics, silent films, travel videos, DBQ essays, and sketchnotes (for some examples). Every project is different so they have to demonstrate learning of the content and learning of different forms of media. These should be forms of media that they will encounter in the real world. 
• Students have to plan out their learning before they create a final project. They have to construct meaning of the content for themselves. They have to figure out what questions to ask while thinking critically about the content. It's not about memorizing the content - it's about how the content is used. 

This can all sound fine and dandy, but students really struggle in my class. Often, my classroom is the first that they've encountered that "looks" like this (not traditional memorization and regurgitation). My classroom doesn't fit the game of education that they've been playing since kindergarten, so they do get frustrated and upset with me. Often I hear students say they want it to be easy. I know that I have to build in more support to help them, and am learning this more and more each year while I teach.

In the end, rigor is not more. I can challenge students to think critically through a paragraph instead of a five page essay. I can challenge students to think critically through an iMovie trailer instead of a whole movie. I know that when I plan units and lessons, I have to remember:

• Learning at high levels 
• Support of learning at high levels 
• Demonstration of learning at high levels 

If I can remember these things, I can make my class rigorous no matter my teaching style.

Thanks for reading! I'll see you next Saturday :)
- Rachel

@historicalipad
Teacherspayteachers Account
Google Cardboard GoFundMe Account


Note: I was really inspired by this article from Huffington Post. It makes great connections between yoga and rigor in the classroom.