Shake Up Learning: Ch. 12: Go Global

To be honest, I need to help my students connect with the world more. I have encouraged students to seek out interviews for their National History Day project, but only a few have taken the initiative. I should provide more guidance to my students to connect with the people they would like to interview. My students have publicly published to the web, but we did not seek to share out on social media. This year I am planning to have a twitter hashtag for each of my classes where students can tweet out their work to a live audience. I can connect with other classes that are doing similar work for peer review.

I was thinking about the entrepreneurial learning tasks of students creating online businesses where they can sell real or imagined goods (which we would make obvious to our audience, of course). Perhaps this work could be published to an authentic audience, especially if the online businesses are selling real goods. Students could publish their research findings for my history, psychology, and sociology classes. Students could even poll people online for their research purposes.

It would be pretty cool to find a person that could be a primary source for a historical event that we might be studying.

Bonus Challenge: How can we go global?

This year my students will be sharing most of their work with a public audience. I haven't decided if I want to use Blogger or Google Sites yet. We will also have a class Twitter hashtag, where students can promote their work. More specifically, we could work with local businesses (Economics class), or create studies that we can work with professionals on (Psychology or Sociology class), or we can talk with authors and professional historians, or create museum exhibits--maybe a contest for the class?--for a local museum (US History, World History class).

Shake Up Learning: Ch. 11: Share Your Voice, and Share Your Story

There are four things that I am truly passionate about: my family, photography, travel, and history. I share these passions with my students through my photographs. When I travel with my family or my husband, I take plenty of photographs. I use these when we talk about the places that I have visited during class. All of my passions meld together well. Teaching is a passion of mine, but it would be empty without my other passions.

My photography: DeviantArt

Here are some of my favorite photographs!

This image shows me in the White House
with my favorite possession... my camera!

 My family in Minnesota, on our way to Yellowstone National Park.

My wedding: July 7, 2018. I married my best friend, Clint!

These are the only two photographs that I did not take.

Shake Up Learning: Ch. 10: Connect and Share

I am active on Twitter and I sometimes use Facebook. I also blog about my educational reflections on Blogger. My Twitter is used solely for educational purposes. My Facebook is personal, and much of it is private. I only post what I would be happy to share with my family, parents, students, students’ parents, etc. I make sure to keep personal information private, such as my address. I have used SnapChat in the past, but I no longer have a smart phone and as a result, I have stopped using SnapChat. Next school year I want to have a hashtag for each class and have students post to the hashtag. They can post things they’ve learned (like starters or exit slips), projects they are proud of, links to their portfolios that they will be putting together on Google Sites or Blogger, etc.

In general, I want my students to know that they have a voice that they can share with not just their friends and family, but with the world. In my very rural community, many students don't believe that they can have an impact on the world. I want them to see how far their influence can reach, and reaching out on social media in an appropriate way is the first step.

Shake Up Learning: Ch. 9: Unleash Creative Thinking

Most of my projects allow student choice in topic (within a time period), medium (digital or physical, website, podcast, video, poster, board game, etc.), and level of creativity (creativity earns students XP in my gamified class, and does not affect their grade). Students love the competitive aspect of gamification and many will go above and beyond even my expectations of what an incredibly creative project looks like. When a student wants to try something new or really challenge themselves with something they’ve never tried before, they can earn XP for creating a challenge for themselves. One time I had a student that loved woodworking. She made a box and used that as her medium of presentation, attaching her information to the outside and inside of the box. It was very creative and she was able to do something she loved by woodworking.

Each project is an opportunity for creativity and problem solving. Sometimes a student will challenge themselves to create a project such as a music video, and they will run into problems along the way. I help them through the best that I can and we recruit help from other students. Most students push through the challenges and complete the project by solving the problems they encountered because the bigger the challenge, the more points they can earn for themselves and their team. We also do gamified challenges that encourage students to problem solve. I would like to incorporate more of these challenges this year.

Some day-to-day formative assessments have to be rigid, because I am checking to see what my students have learned, but the practice can be more flexible. My projects are already extremely flexible.

I don’t provide my students with very many rigid expectations for working on assignments and projects. Most of the time when I assign research, even just a short answer to a research question, I don’t provide a text for my students to read. I take away the obvious resources and have my students find resources on their own. At first they seem lost and many just try to Google the answer, but this is a learning opportunity. We talk about how to Google using the advanced search, how to avoid websites that lack credibility, how to corroborate resources to make sure that we’re finding the truth, how to avoid websites that are basically just ads, etc. Taking away the obvious resources such as the text has helped my students learn to find credible answers for themselves.

Example of a Creative Project:

I think the best way to make an assignment to unleash more creativity would be to give less specifics in the rubric. Make the learning target clear, and let students find a path to it. If you spell out each and every part of the project, you will get identical results from each student. Boring! Allow students more choice. Giving a choice in topic, medium (video, podcast, website, poster, song, etc.), and whom they would like to work with as well can open many creative doors.

This was a final project I used with my US History class. The only requirement was this:

"Choose any topic that interests you, as long as it concerns US History. Your task is to research your topic across at least two different periods of US History. The two time periods that you research must be at least 20 years apart. Compare and contrast how your topic is/was perceived by Americans, as well as how your topic has changed over the course of time. (Historical Thinking Skill: Patterns of continuity and change over time). You must cite your source in MLA format."

Everything else was up to the kids! Some freaked out a little because they didn't have much guidance, but in the end most students liked the freedom. Presentations went very well because there was such a great variety of topics and types of projects!

My first piece of advice: Be patient with your students! They will ask you a million questions, mainly, "Is this what you want?" Just let them explore. Also, encourage peer feedback. The kids are willing to help each other more than you'd think. Also, start small. I did similar projects with minimal rubrics on much smaller scales before we did the final project. The small projects were minimal amounts of points as well. Students are less likely to be creative if the risk is too high. My classes are gamified too, so I give extra XP to students who take risks, try more difficult projects or something they haven't done before, or really put an incredible amount of effort in.This doesn't affect their grade, so students really get creative and show you their strengths!

Shake Up Learning: Ch. 8: Uberize Your Learning and Curate Resources

I am always finding new resources on Twitter and Pinterest.

Pinterest is an excellent curation tool and I have many boards that I pin to. I also use Google Keep, mostly for my favorite ideas that I find on Twitter. I love that I can label my notes for easy organization. I have used Delicious in the past, but my account hasn’t been accessed in a while and I bet that most things on there are outdated. I also have a YouTube playlist for each unit for each class. I don’t use all of the videos, but if students are struggling with a concept or need more information, I point them in that direction. I also have each of these linked on my website, where I keep a digital copy of everything that we do in class, including a day-to-day agenda of what we did in class that day. Students know that if they need anything, they check the website first. This saves me a ton of time and saves my students a ton of headaches.

I want to continue using Google Keep more regularly to keep track of the ideas that I have on the fly. I like that I can take voice recordings on Keep as well, especially because I used to use a voice recorder if I came up with ideas while listening to podcasts on my long drives to work. I rarely ever listened to the recordings though. Keep automatically transfers the voice recordings to written text, which is extremely helpful.

Shake Up Learning Ch. 7: Always Be Learning

Twitter is my number one source for news about my favorite digital tools and for ideas for new teaching strategies. I also subscribe to newsletters, such as the newsletter that Google sends out about updates to G Suite.

I love to learn new skills and I am always seeking out new knowledge. I read tutorials, watch YouTube videos, or just use trial and error until I figure out what I am trying to accomplish.

If my students are struggling to learn something on their own, I send them to YouTube first. Googling answers can sometimes work, but that also requires the skills to find the right website to help you learn something. I tell students to start with Wiki How, as they have great tutorials that are written and also include images.

Shake Up Learning: Ch. 6: Breaking Barriers and Bad Habits

Some of my assignments and projects allow students the opportunity to choose a topic, medium, and form of presentation, but I could expand this to more assignments. Some students benefit from teacher-led instruction as well. I could offer more of this as a centers-based activity. Allow students to work individually, collaboratively, or with me, their teacher. I’m also adding flexible seating this year to allow students to find a place in the room where they can concentrate the best.

In my gamified class, behavior is already completely separate from the grade in the class. I do still take off a maximum of 10% for late work. I can work to get rid of this, but I have to have an alternative to add to my gamified class. Including a consequence in the game will separate the behavior from the grade, but it must be compelling enough to show kids the importance of turning in their work on time.

Behavior and learning are measured completely separately in my classes. All assignments and assessments are based on learning targets, which are based on standards and essential learning outcomes. I have to alter this quite a bit in the next couple years, as Wisconsin’s standards for Social Studies are changing in the near future.