Why do we assume the worst?

Although I usually avoid the teacher's lounge at all costs, I found myself in there today and I had to jump into a conversation I overheard.  Our administration is strongly supporting online testing and we have shown teachers many options for doing so.  We have also shown them how quickly and easily these tests can be graded, but most are still fighting it.  Today a teacher said she was not going to give her final on iPads because it's too easy for the kids to cheat; all they have to do is take a screenshot and send it to everyone.

I had to step in at this point and I was glad another freshman teacher also spoke up.  I have given every test online this year using the Canvas LMS.  The first quiz was a short 10-question multiple choice test because I wasn't sure how my students would respond or how the test would work on the iPad.  I knew that my student's abilities overall went downhill throughout the day.  My first period is my honors class and my last period is extremely challenging with half a dozen resource students and a large number of struggling EL students.  I figured if there was cheating going on throughout the day, the scores would get better as the day progressed.  This did not happen.  I have now given both short quizzes and full exams that included multiple choice, short answer, and essay questions and every time I have felt confident that there was no cheating going on.  The other freshman teacher shared similar experiences.  

After leaving the lounge, I felt myself getting angry that teachers are assuming the worst about their students.  I am also wondering how much these negative assumptions or fears are holding teachers back from implementing the use of iPads in their classes.  What concerns me even more is that the students pick up on our feelings and expectations.  I believe they respond to us.  If we assume they are going to cheat and let them know we don't trust them, they will not respect us and will probably fulfill those negative expectations.  If they feel like we trust them and believe in their abilities, they will (usually) respect that trust and give their all. 

The Best Laid Plans. . .

My freshmen have been working on short stories for a few weeks, reading and analyzing a story and then writing their own fictional narratives.

Today I wanted to go back and review the short story elements and give a short quiz to assess how much my students had really learned the elements after discussing them in context rather than just as vocabulary terms. I created the quiz in Canvas and planned on using Socrative for whole-class review.  I quickly realized Socrative was not going to cooperate for some reason.  The room login page was black and half the students didn't get the response box when I opened a question.  After a couple minutes of trying to figure out the problem, I had to switch gears.

I told them to close Socrative and open Doodle Buddy or any other app that gave them a blank whiteboard to write on.  I then did the same review activity using the iPads like individual whiteboards.  As we reviewed, I overheard a student tell his neighbor, "This is fun. I'm glad she didn't just give up on reviewing when the app didn't work."

I think this part of why iPads are working so well for me and my students.  I am willing to try anything and I have realized that with technology, the best laid plans may not work in the middle of class.  I have to be willing to stop and say, "This is not working, let's try something else."

This doesn't just apply to the use of technology.  Too many teachers stick to their plans no matter what is happening in class.  Half the class can be asleep or completely lost and they just plow ahead because they "have too much material to cover."  I don't even know what that means.  What does "covering material" mean to a student?

Short Story Topics in Record Time

Fictional Narratives are a major writing standard in grades 9-10.  It is also the only genre my students are relatively adept at.  They spend a lot of time with this type of writing in the earlier grades.  Expository writing is a completely different story.  Although I have seen a huge improvement in my student's narrative writing in the last few years, there are still a few steps that trip them up.

The first obstacle is always coming up with a character and topic they can develop into a whole story with all the elements a short story needs to include.  I have tried a lot of different strategies for helping students come up with topics, but I've never been completely happy with any of them.  Then I stumbled upon this site when doing research on archetypes for my seniors:

http://archetypewriting.com/muse/idea_generators.htm

I added this link to my daily agenda:

Archetype's Plot Scenario Generator

and showed my students how to click refresh to randomly generate a new topic.  I love that the topics give them a protagonist, a situation, and a secondary character who brings their own complications.  Each topic has plenty of information to give the students a good starting point.

I had 120 freshman decide on topics and start developing the details for their protagonist within 10 minutes.  I also heard a lot of really interesting conversations about where they could go with their stories, so I am excited to see how these stories turn out.

Reteaching with Student Screencasts

This idea came from Gini Pierce-Cummings and originated with the math teachers at Desmond Middle School in Madera,CA. She explained it to me at a CoffeeCUE meeting where we discussed lots of edtech goodness. As soon as she explained it I said, "I have to try that. I think I will tomorrow!" As I stated in a previous post, I am guilty of wanting to try everything I hear about. In this case, it was a brilliant idea.

The concept in a nutshell: students create a screen cast of a vocabulary term or concept, email the video link to me, I turn it into a QR code, post it on the wall, students scan the QR code and now have all their classmate's videos on their iPads.

I decided to try it with my honors freshman class to gauge the difficulty. My instruction included:

• telling them to find a partner
• having them choose one of the 8 parts of speech we had been working with
• giving them 3 minutes to play with their screen casting app (at the time we used Screenchomp, but I like Educaeations better)
• giving them 20 minutes to create their screen cast with the understanding that all freshmen would be using their videos to study

The next day I had the QR codes posted and they went around the room scanning them all. There is nothing more rewarding than hearing teenagers say, "Wow, this is cool!", especially in a classroom. . . My non-honors classes scanned them as well and we discussed which videos were most or least helpful in preparation for creating their own for the next unit.

 

The best thing about this idea is that it can be used in ANY subject, which is rare in high school.

 

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Biggest Distractions

The great thing about building a good relationship with students (especially high school students) is that they'll usually tell you the truth if you ask them a question.  One good example was my end of year survey last year.  I asked about the biggest drawback to having iPads in class.  Almost every student said it was a distraction.  More specifically, games and chat apps were a distraction.

We went into the 1:1 program with the arguably naive notion that we would leave everything open and teach the kids how to use everything responsibly.  We greatly underestimated a teenager's ability to exercise self control.  The typical freshman is incapable of staying on task if their friend sends them an IM from another class saying, "HAHA, just beat your high score in Temple Run!" (This is an actual example, by the way.)  So by the end of the year I was spending lots of time reminding them what they were supposed to be doing and they spent lots of time trying not to get caught playing games.  They were very honest about their inability to ignore these distractions.

As a result, my one request for this year was locking the app store.  Period.  No access, no iTunes, no students adding anything.  So far it's made a huge difference in time on task, project completion, and grades.  Freshmen don't know what they're missing and sophomores and juniors can't say it's a bad idea since it came from them.

What Makes it all Worth It...

When people find out I teach high school, they usually have some sort of negative comment about teenagers, and how they can't imagine how hard my job must be.  I have been lucky that no one has treated me with the disrespect teachers in America are facing at this pivotal moment in (education) history.  I tell these people that yes, teenagers do suck sometimes, but most of the time they are really fun to be around.  Yes, they can be moody and disrespectful, but they can also be really sweet and caring.  Yes, I have had students cuss at me, but I have also had them bring me gifts from school field trips, or bring me ceramic frogs from their annual Christmas trips to Mexico to add to my classroom collection.  For each kid that's driven me crazy over the past 7 years, there are 10 who brought me to tears at graduation.

I work harder than almost anyone I know and leave work every day emotionally, mentally, and physically drained.  If someone asked me why I do it, this would be my reply:

I had a student who had to live alone his senior year because his parents had to work out of town all week.  He came into class worried about how he would eat because he didn't know how to cook anything.  We got online and found easy recipes he could handle.  Another day he came in angry that a teacher had accused him of smoking pot at school and he'd gotten in her face.  I just said, "I know it wasn't you, but you shouldn't have handled it like that.  You're better than that."  He looked me in the eye and said, "Thanks Miss, you're right, I am, but sometimes I need to come back and hear you say it." I bawled at his graduation like he was my own and when he introduced me to his mom, she hugged me crying and said, "Thank you for being his mom when I couldn't be there."  He sends me a texts regularly and I got one last week (two years after he graduated) to tell me he got a promotion at work and he wants to take me to lunch.

THAT'S why I do this. 

The only number that can measure my success as a teacher is the number of students who have touched my life and whose lives I've touched.  No test score can do that.    

  

Reflections on 1:1 Year 1

My biggest obstacle this year was wanting to try everything.  My greatest success this year was wanting to try everything.  Let me explain.  Every time I found a new app or heard a new tip, I wanted to try it out.

The problem this created was that we never really settled into a routine and we spent more time learning the tools than I would have liked.  The content should obviously be a priority, with the tools being a vehicle.  We tried a couple different PDF annotating apps, a couple different apps for discussion forums, we used Edmodo once before I decided I didn't like it, we tried a couple different ways of submitting work, etc.

This desire to try everything worked in my favor for a few reasons:

• My students became very comfortable using their iPads for a variety of assignments and activities. 
• I became very comfortable trying new things without knowing how they would turn out.  
• My students never got bored because they never knew what to expect. We didn't have a specific schedule or specific assignments certain days of the week.
• My coworkers became more open to trying new things when I discussed my experiences with them.
• My administration became more comfortable with my go-with-the-flow style of planning.  I refuse to plan a year (or even a month) in advance until I develop the ability to read my student's minds or see into the future. 

The most important lesson I learned in my first year of 1:1 iPads is that I can't be afraid to try new things.  If I had an idea, but wasn't quite sure how to make it work, I walked into first period (it helped that they were my honors class), and asked for their input.  Many of the apps or strategies we ended up using long-term came from my students.  When we become afraid to try new things for fear of failure or fear of giving up our sense of authority to our students, everyone in the class loses. 

My goal for next year? Make some decisions about what really worked and what didn't.  I have to be willing to leave some really cool ideas and apps behind if they don't work for my students.