Proficiences, Blended Learning, Personalized Learning, STEM and Technology

These are the things I have been working with all year.  Standards Based Grading is going just fine and I am developing ways to use online resources in a personalized way with my Algebra 1 students.  I am hopefully training the students to use online resources in a professional way to further their own learning goals by creating a well organized database of videos, self paced problems and class resources.  I liked this blog post about MOOC's (Massive Open Online Courses), I believe that being able to learn from others effectively on the web is becoming more and more important and I'd like to train my students to do that.  Our entire school is going toward Proficiency Based Graduation Requirements and I believe that web based resources can be very useful in personalized and self paced learning.  Most of my innovative efforts in algebra this year have been around this topic.

I teach in our math computer lab, so I have access to computers while students are in class.  I am working on a blended approach to personalized learning where I set some time aside during the regular class for students to work on material that their standards based tests have indicated some shortcomings in.  One of the resources I use is videos that I have made with Explain Everything.  This is a fantastic iPad app (also available for Android recently) that allows you to make videos explaining a topic.  Something I would like to do is use EdPuzzle to embed quizzes in the YouTube videos, but it just hasn't happened yet.

I would like for the students to have tablets so they could access this material any time they have a web connection, but this isn't cheap and my school isn't jumping right into one to one for all students.  The tablets I am interested in are the Galaxy Note and the Surface Pro.  I would like the students to be able to write math problems with a stylus and keep it all their work in a OneNote notebook.

As our entire school goes towards Proficiency Based Graduation Requirements, I have been considering a change from SBG to another method of learning that uses my standards as learning targets and uses the standards based quizzes more as a formative assessment.  The actual grades would be more connected to summative assessments (ie unit tests).  I understand that some folks have been using Schoology for this sort of thing, I will be looking into this further.

Along with the algebra 1 work, I am in my second year as our STEM Academy leader.  There are 55 students in the Academy and I am very busy developing a program that allows them to pursue their interests in science by participating in a STEM Advisory, Internships and doing a capstone project.  The state of VT has mandated Personalized Learning Plans for all students beginning in fall 2015 for our freshmen.  This Academy approach is one possible way for students to receive a personalized learning pathway, there are many exciting things developing at our school right now as we try to figure out how to make learning more meaningful for all of our students.

Statistics Unit

We are approaching the end of first semester and we are finishing our first ever Common Core Statistics unit.  We covered dot plots, histograms, measures of central tendency, box and whisker plots and standard deviation.  We found that the students were familiar with most of this information except for standard deviation.  Next year, I will go through some of the basic concepts quicker and I will spend more time on analyzing data.   I'm thinking more analysis of outliers and more study of different types of distributions (normal and otherwise).  Here's links to some activities that I found helpful

Box and Whisker Lesson

Interquartile Range and Outliers

Standard Deviation Lesson

Summary Activity using pennies

Class web page

I have created a web page for my algebra 1 class, here's the link

Algebra 1 Class

It's not that fancy yet, but I'm starting to gather things here.  I've been using a Moodle page, but I find it rather clunky.  I'm not using most of the classroom management features of Moodle, I mostly just want a place to post things.  I was initially thinking of a Google site, but it's inconvenient to post anything but a Google product on their sites.  Our school uses Wordpress to host our sites and I could post any type of document there.  I have also created a space on our school's shared server where I am collecting all of the materials I have found over the years.  We are transitioning to common core and I think it's important to start gathering and sharing.  Hopefully this web site evolves into something nice as the year goes along.

Personal data stream

I'm thinking more about how to personalize the information I get from the web.  Subscribing to blogs has been my favorite way to get teaching ideas, but I'd like to be more plugged into the human voice in general.  I've been looking around at apps for my phone and my two current favorites are Flipboard and Pulse.  They both allow you to customize your sources from a wide variety of topics.  Pulse seems more oriented towards news and Flipboard is more about fun things and social networking, but they are both well rounded services.

Class webpage

I started the year with a Moodle page for algebra 1.  I think I'm going to move it over to a Google site and I've started putting that together.  I'm not using the forum or "turn it in" features of Moodle, math doesn't really lend itself to composing online that way.  I'm mostly using it to post things and I think a website is better for that.  I'm also thinking about transitioning to Common Core and I think that a website is a good place to collect materials as we start to put together resources from various places.  Also, a website is easier to share with other math teachers which should allow for more collaboration

Jeopardy Labs

I love Jeopardy as a review game, but I've found that the Powerpoint templates that are out there can be a bit clunky in actual classroom use.  Jeopardy labs is a free site that works great.  One of the main advantages is how good of a job it does of keeping score.  I have a shared review game for my Algebra 1 Chapter 1 test next week, it can be found here

Socrative Space Race

I've mentioned Socrative in an earlier post.  It's a free, web based student response system.  I really like this type of quick, formative assessment.  I used clickers last year, but I teach in the math computer lab so I have enough computers for everyone and it's easier to use the web based systems.  Plus, there's some extra features like this Space Race.  I've only used it once, but I liked it and I plan on doing it again.

I put the students in groups of two for a quick quiz on subtracting integers after they had done a worksheet on it.  Each pair logs into a computer and they go to my room on Socrative.  I start the quiz as a Space Race and they see this on the projector attached to my computer



As they answer questions correctly, their space ship moves across the screen.  It's fun to do, I played the game myself as a student in a tech ed course this summer and it was a good time.

Online planbook

In keeping with the web based theme this year, I am also doing my lesson planning online. My school has an online gradebook as well, so I am not keeping any paper records this year. The plan book I choose is www.planbookedu.com. I liked the layout and they support an A day, B day schedule which we have at my school. Also, I'm posting this to practice embedding a screencast taken with Jing.

Socrative

We used www.socrative.com in class on Friday to take a survey of true/false answers about potential solutions to algebra 1 equations.  You know... 2x-3=7, does x=2 make this a true statement?  After they all made a choice, I put a bar graph of their results on the big screen.  We did this multiple times.  It worked well, Socrative is very fast and they all were engaged.  The next thing I'm going to try is a "Space Race"  They will be in groups with a series of questions to answer.  As they get an answer correct, their space ship makes a step towards the end.  They will be able to watch everybody's space ship move and I think it will be fun.

LiveBinders

This is a nice site for keeping a multi-dimensional online notebook.  I found it through a good one that was created by @web20classroom, http://www.livebinders.com/play/play/86706  I have been using Microsoft One Note to keep track of my ideas, but I may switch to this.  I might have my students use it as an online notebook for a seminar class I am teaching in the spring.  I will have about 15 students who will be doing internships in a STEM field of their choice.  They will each have a laptop and I will be piloting all sorts of PLN, IBL, (insert 21st century acronym here) things with them.

Socrative

This is an online student response system that looks good.  I am fortunate enough to teach in a room where each student has a computer, so we will be using this next year instead of clickers.   http://www.socrative.com/