Author: Kristy - HS Sterner

Three benefits of Genius Hour or 20% Time:

1. Student empowerment. To be honest, as a teacher, Genius Hour or 20% Time kind of scares me! Losing that much class time and letting students find their own area of interest to explore is very intimidating to me. But from a student perspective, it sounds great! I’m a Stats teacher and one of the units I teach is probability. During this time, I think I could let students try to create their own game of chance. If I were a student, I would really like this. I’m personally really into board games, and it would be so neat to be given time to actually try to create something worthwhile that maybe others would even want to play. We have a 3D printer at my school, so my students could even 3D print their own pieces for their game. If students were given this power and authority at school, they could create great things.
2. Open-ended structure. Students will be able to do things at the upper levels of Bloom’s taxonomy by creating, analyzing, etc. This open-ended structure will allow students to think beyond the classroom. All too often, teachers are focused on meeting various academic standards and objectives set forth by the district or state. As a result, our students lose the opportunity to be creative and think outside the box. This Genius Hour or 20% Time can help with this.
3. Promotion of technology. Just by the heavy emphasis on all things technological nowadays, there is a strong possibility of technology implementation during Genius Hour or 20% Time. Even when students are using technology in our classrooms, how often are they really using it to think creatively? I feel like most of the time, students are just typing in a Google Doc or going to a website that we provided for them. However, if students are provided time to engage with their own project, they will be able to create instead of just consume. They will probably end up using new technology that they haven’t before. This is setting students up for future job opportunities and getting them to think in innovative ways.

Two potential hurdles or obstacles (curricular and/or stakeholder) and how to address them:

1. Parents might not be on board with “letting students roam free.” Parents might think that this is the teacher’s way of doing nothing for 20% of their workdays. To address this, you could send an email home to parents explaining exactly what Genius Hour or 20% Time really is. If parents fully understand the process, they might be more likely to get on board. Additionally, you could even set up a collaborative site where parents can log in and see the progress of their children. For example, a Google Site (that was my Course Project!) could be made for a class, and each student or team of students would get their own page on the class Google Site. Students can use their page to show off what they are creating and learning about. This way, parents get firsthand knowledge of all the authentic projects that are being explored during this time.
2. Teachers might not know how to grade the work being done during Genius Hour or 20% Time. If students are allowed to look into something they’re passionate about, they might all be doing different things; how can something like that be graded? To address this, a more generic rubric could be created. Our provided website for this discussion post had an included link that had 15+ rubrics. Teachers do not need to reinvent the wheel! They can get a start on Genius Hour or 20% Time by using one of these rubrics that already exist. Then, once teachers get the hang of it, they can adapt the rubrics to make it more their own. Additionally, there was another included rubric that stressed grading the process, not the final project. In doing so, students are benefiting from the time and effort they put into their project. This is a great way to let students know that it’s okay to fail. Not everything they complete has to be a success; instead, the Genius Hour or 20% Time emphasizes that it’s better to grow and learn during this process.

Benefits I’ve experienced using Zoom or Google Meet in the virtual classroom:

Google Meets were a life saver during Covid. One year, my district was hybrid where students only came to school twice a week. During the other days, they attended via Google Meets. I don’t know what I would have done without this resource. I don’t know how education would have survived the Covid situation if it had happened 30 years ago. We were not equipped to communicate with students outside of the classroom. But thanks to Google Meets, my students were able to attend class. I could even host smaller groups of students if some of them had questions about a similar topic. It would email me a list of all students in attendance during a Google Meet, showing the time they logged in/out. It was a fantastic way to monitor attendance. Also, I always had a “Google Meet” link on the top of all of my classes on our LMS. If a student had a question, they could just email me confirming a time, and we could both easily pop in. It was such an easy way to give students individualized online help that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.

Challenges to using Zoom or Google Meet in the virtual classroom:

When using Google Meets in the virtual classroom, there is always the potential for some students to not have a good internet connection at home. That being said, there is always the potential for students to just say this in order to get out of the online meeting. It can be a tough thing to monitor. Additionally, I had a big issue with students not turning on their cameras. Even if they were told it was mandatory, some of them still didn’t care. There was absolutely no way of knowing if they were even truly there listening. They could have just logged in and walked away. Lastly, sometimes Google Meets can just be so awkward. Sometimes you ask a question and no one says anything. I know that can happen in face-to-face classes too, but usually someone gives in and answers when they’re sitting in front of you. When you’re attending a Google Meet, it can be easy to “slink” into the background and feel like you don’t need to participate.

Have you been able to overcome the challenges? What challenges still remain?

I resolved the challenge of students not putting their cameras on by making it an assignment for which they got points. I wouldn’t make it much, but it would be a 5-point assignment for logging into the Google Meet and sitting there with their camera turned on for the entirety of class. It was unfortunately one more thing to keep track of, but I think it was worth it. Additionally, I resolved the challenge of no one speaking by calling on students by name, just like in a regular class. They seemed a little shocked at first, but they eventually got used to it. It kept them more alert in class because they never knew when they’d be asked to speak. It also got more students typing into the chat too. They knew if they responded there, that would also count as volunteering, so that was encouraged.

I think technical difficulties could still exist with using Zoom or Google Meet. Also, people “zone out” during these meetings because they feel like they aren’t being “seen.” I know I’m guilty of being in virtual faculty meetings where I felt like I could work on other things because no one could see me in the zoom meeting. If I was in a face-to-face meeting, I never would have thought to work on something else. This lowered productivity is definitely a challenge of Zoom.

What are the benefits of using Twitter as a professional learning network, and how can it be used as professional growth in education?

Twitter is a great tool for promoting professional growth in education. It is almost like a little mini-blog where participants must get their point across in 140 characters. Teachers can join in on educational conversations and tweet in real-time. It’s basically as “real” as a digital conversation can get nowadays. Teachers and students can join into online discussions simply by searching for keywords/hashtags. It has made it so easy to participate in conversations about very specific topics that pertain to your own discipline or subject. You can find things that benefit you and make you a better educator or student. By sharing ideas and learning from others, Twitter can be an engaging and collaborative educational space for people around the world. 

Pros of Twitter:

1. It is easy to use and interactive. Hashtags make it really easy for others to follow your posts and search for certain keywords. Teachers can make posts and have students follow, comment, ask questions, etc.
2. It’s very accessible. Twitter can be accessed from computers, tablets, phones, etc. As long as you have internet access, you can pretty much use Twitter anytime, anywhere.
3. It allows for real time discussion. Oftentimes, online discussions are done asynchronously where people can post comments and their replies to others at a time convenient to them. They are usually not online when others are. However, eLearning events on Twitter allow students to join together at the same time to have a conversation.
4. It appeals to the younger generation. Young people love technology; there’s no denying that. Encouraging them to have a face-to-face conversation with their peers might be daunting. But I bet if you told them to join in a Twitter discussion with them, they wouldn’t mind that as much.
5. It can build a strong community of learners. Twitter lets you connect with literally anyone in the world. It is amazing that you can so easily have a discussion with people on different continents and learn from each other.

Cons of Twitter:

1. There is a 140-character limit. I’m an exceptionally long-winded person (I can’t help it!), so I’m always amazed at how 140 characters get used up in no time. I know sometimes it’s good to be concise, but it can be tough to get your point across in so few words.
2. Twitter is constantly updating/refreshing. It can be tough to follow discussions where there are lots of members because the conversation is moving so fast. You’re trying to make a point or answer a question about a topic, but someone else starts tweeting about something new.
3. It is mostly text-based. It is not the ideal platform for including images or other forms of multimedia that you’d like to share with others.
4. It can be distracting. I mentioned in a previous post that I think the younger generation has a harder time accepting boredom. I think there’s something to be said for learning how to just sit and be patient. Twitter is just another way that students can get distracted as one of many social networking sites they’re on.
5. It can be difficult to save content/conversations. Discussions can be tough to review if conversations aren’t threaded. If educators would like to analyze and digest the conversation afterwards, they might need to screenshot it on their own.

Reference:

Pappas, C. (2015, May 11). Using Twitter for eLearning: 8 pros and 6 cons to consider. eLearning Industry. Retrieved from https://elearningindustry.com/using-twitter-for-elearning-8-pros-and-6-cons-to-consider

Flickr is a great resource for finding images online. Additionally, it seems like students could even embed comments on the images they find. It could lead to student collaboration and participation, if they share their pictures and comments with one another. I think I could use Flickr in my classroom in several different ways.

First, it could be used as an introductory activity at the beginning of the school year. Students could be asked to find a picture that they think describes them in some way. It could be anything from a hobby/sport of theirs to an image that embodies their personality. They could be asked to post their image on a class discussion board along with a short explanation of why they choose that image. Students could then read and comment on their peers’ pictures as they get to know them.

Second, I could assign a picture (such as the one I selected to accompany this blog post at the bottom) and ask students to make predictions about what they think we are about to start learning. For example, with my photo, I would expect students to predict that we will be discussing a topic involving playing cards, and maybe some of them would guess that Probability was our upcoming unit.

Third, students could be tasked with finding their own image that describes an upcoming unit. It would be a great way to get them hypothesizing on their own about what they think our next unit will be about. For example, when we are able to start our “Sampling” unit, I could ask students to find an image that they think represents this idea. They could post it to a collaborative spot where they have to explain in a few sentences why they chose that image. I could even have students vote on their favorite to get all students looking at each others’ submissions.

Before the advent of technology, I don’t think classrooms were very collaborative. About 20 years ago when I was in high school, I basically just remember taking notes or completing handouts in class. Rarely do I recall doing group projects or anything very collaborative. The teacher ran the show, and the students were mostly spectators. However, this week’s module states that nowadays, “Teachers have the opportunity to make classrooms collaborative environments where each student becomes a contributor in the active learning process.” A collaborative learning environment has changed the way teaching and learning takes place.

Collaboration has become so much easier to do in recent years with the abundance of free or low-cost online services available. For example, in my school district we utilize the LMS Schoology. It has led to streamlined communication between students, teachers, administrators, etc. It is easy to share ideas, assignments, notifications, etc. I have taught Statistics for 15 years at my school. One year, an additional teacher was needed to teach 2 sections of the course. She was terrified because it had been so long since she had any exposure to the class. I gave her my join code on Schoology and instantaneously she had access to all of my recorded lectures, handouts, quizzes, and much more. Her anxiety was eased tremendously by having all of this at her fingertips. In the past, when teachers were given a new course to teach, it was panic-inducing thinking about all of the assignments that would need to be created and individual planning that would need to be done. Now, a collaborative environment has benefited teachers tremendously as they can share resources with one another.

Additionally, benefiting both teachers and students, is the accessibility from multiple devices. When I am at school, I will primarily rely on my MacBook. However, being able to have the Schoology app on my phone has made it simple to connect with students about the class. If they have a question after school hours, I will get a notification from Schoology on my phone, just like I would any other app. If I forget to tell my class something (like “bring headphones to class tomorrow”), I can just post an update to Schoology and they will get the notification on their phones. Communication in the classroom has changed so much in recent years, and it’s become much more convenient for people to stay in touch and share ideas.

Sharing knowledge in a collaborative environment has changed the way students are able to learn. They can develop higher-level thinking skills and have increased engagement as they work together on team projects. Students can show they learned the material while working on their social skills. Being able to work together online is something they will most likely need in the future, so preparing them for this in school is incredibly beneficial. It requires a cooperative effort by students to mutually find solutions, create products, or reach levels of understanding. If students take ownership of their own learning through collaboration, it can lead to positive results in self esteem, leadership, and communication.

Title: Sharing Resources with your School Community and Beyond

Author: Vivian Hernandez

Location: Edutopia

Relevance of source: Benefit #3 of Google Sites – Sharing resources with school community

Summary of resource: Besides just being a benefit to students, Google sites can be a great way to reach others who are involved more indirectly in your class. Many times, I find that parents have no idea what their high school students are learning in school. If they email me asking about a grade or assignment, I usually find that their child told them nothing about how the class is run. It can be tough for parents of high school students to know what their child’s day is like. In elementary school, students typically have one teacher who is in fairly routine contact with them. But in high school, each student could have like 6 teachers and each teacher could have like 120+ students. At a certain point, the lines of communication between teachers and parents seem to break down. A Google Site would be a great way to break down that barrier. In my school district, we utilize Schoology. I know that parents can request access to teachers’ pages, but it is not just directly available to them; parents need a separate login. A nice thing about Google Sites is that teachers can just make their page public and parents can easily see exactly what is going on in class. Parents can actually become more actively involved again with their child’s education.

Other than parents, Google sites is a helpful online platform for other educators to reference. In my professional practice, it could be a great way for educators to work together. “Your resources do not need to be perfect to build connections with others or to be seen as valuable. The real value comes from your genuine care for your community and your willingness to help others” (Hernandez, 2021). If other teachers create their own Google sites, we can all rely on one another for ideas and inspiration. We might find lesson ideas from someone else, or just adopt organizational ideas for how to set up our own online website. A Google site is just a great way to extend learning and growth beyond our 4 classroom walls.

Citation:

Hernandez, V. (2021, June 4). Sharing resources with your school community and beyond. Edutopia. Retrieved November 10, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/sharing-resources-your-school-community-and-beyond

Title: 4 Free Web Tools for Student Portfolios

Author: Dave Guymon

Location: Edutopia

Relevance of source: Benefit #2 of Google Sites – Student portfolios

Summary of resource: While students are in your class, they probably end up creating many projects, responding to various discussions, and completing numerous assignments. I remember about 20 years ago when I was in high school, many times my teachers required a physical notebook for their class. We needed to have a binder with various dividers that would separate our sections of learning. Nowadays, Google Sites takes this idea of a binder and puts it online by allowing students the opportunity to create a digital portfolio. Instead of a physical binder where students can lose their papers or become disorganized, Google Sites is a way for students to create a personal space for their learning all by themselves. Through the idea of portfolio creation, students will be able to see their growth over time. “And as our focus in the classroom continues to move toward performance-based assessment, [Google Sites] will help you and your students to compose memorable narratives of their learning” (Guymon, 2014).

For my professional practice, I like the idea of my students creating an online portfolio. I teach AP Stats, and they need to be prepared to take their AP exam in early May. We cover a lot of material and they do a lot of their own research in the class. With Google Sites, students would be able to organize everything they learn and create in the class. At the end of the year, they would have one comprehensive space in which they could find all of their work. This would make it so much easier for them when studying. Additionally, this is something that they could have forever. Oftentimes, after they graduate, my students will email me and say that they referred back to their Stats notebook when they were taking a similar class in college. However, sometimes they email me asking me to explain something because they threw out their notebook. If each student had their own Google Site, they would be able to refer back to it whenever/wherever they needed.

Online portfolios via Google Sites are a great way to provide students with an online platform to collect their work. “You will be helping them practice digital citizenship while simultaneously helping them learn important technology skills” (Guymon, 2014). In my professional practice, promoting digital literacy is something that I need to work on, and utilizing Google Sites with my students would be a step in the right direction.

Citation:

Guymon, D. (2014, May 2). 4 free web tools for student portfolios. Edutopia. Retrieved November 10, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/web-tools-for-student-portfolios-dave-guymon

Title: Using a Class Google Site to Improve Organization and Engagement

Author: Steven Goldman

Location: Edutopia

Relevance of source: Benefit #1 of Google Sites – Improving Organization & Engagement

Summary of resource: Google Sites is a free tool that can create an organized workspace for the classroom and is available to those both at school and home. Pre-Covid, teachers could pretty much just rely on the fact that students were going to be in school most days. They could always explain things face-to-face and give all handouts directly to students. However, during the school years immediately following Covid, there were hybrid settings where students only came to school twice a week, mandatory quarantines where students had to stay home for a week, and other situations requiring classroom absence. We were forced into a world where online learning was a necessity. Thankfully, Google Sites helps with this, as it is a consistent way to ensure students can use the same site to access course material whether from home or school.

Google Sites is great for organization of a class website. Goldman (2021) used it as such: “It had a calendar of what was happening, the goals for the week, and a separate page for each day.” He was able to create daily pages containing goals, the agenda, the homework assignments, and any links needed for that day. This is a useful way to keep students all on the same page. While they might not be missing school as much anymore for Covid, this is still a great resource for when students miss class for other reasons. This can benefit my professional practice because I teach mostly seniors who constantly miss class for field trips, family vacations, college visits, athletics, etc. Having one organized space for them to look to when they miss class will help them not fall behind.

Additionally, Google Sites can be used to promote student engagement. Since it is a spot that must be checked regularly, teachers can post content that they want students to see. This might include things like interactive activities, videos, quotes, etc. In my professional practice, there are always things relevant to Stats that don’t really fit into the curriculum but are just interesting to look at or read. Creating this space on an online platform is a great way to give students something to look forward to seeing.

Citation: 

Goldman, S. (2021, August 18). Using a class Google site to improve organization and engagement. Edutopia. Retrieved November 10, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/using-class-google-site-improve-organization-and-engagement/

Class: Statistics

Title: Resource-Collection for our Culminating Group Project

Audience: 11th and 12th grade students

Objective: Students will be able to use Pinterest to create a collaborative Pinterest board sharing resources about one of the graphs we have discussed in class.

Materials needed: Access to Pinterest and our School’s LMS Schoology

Prior knowledge: At the end of the year in Stats, students always complete a culminating group project where they collect their own data and make various graphs. Students learned the following 8 graphs throughout the year: pie charts, bar charts, histograms, dotplots, stempots, timeplots, boxplots, and scatterplots.

The problem is that sometimes students forget about some of the different graphs we have learned throughout the year. I always just kind of “throw” students into the final project and expect them to look back in their notes or research online if they forgot about any of these graphs. Below is my revised lesson plan for incorporating social bookmarking before starting this culminating group project.

Revised lesson plan: Depending on the size of the classes, I will have students work in teams of two or three to compile Pinterest boards on the different graphs. All students will be able to refer to these boards then for a refresher on the components and aspects of these graphs. 

Each group of students will be assigned one of the graphs we covered in class. Then, each group will contribute to a shared/collaborative Pinterest board where they find videos, handouts, posters, etc. that serve as a reminder of how to properly create and analyze their graph. Once finished, each group will share the link to their Pinterest board to a class discussion board. These boards will become a massive resource center for all groups to reference when creating the graphs for their culminating group project.

Short explanation (3 to 5 sentences) as to why I chose the lesson plan: Sometimes as teachers, we take for granted how much students remember (especially at the end of the year when motivation and engagement are dwindling). Although I think graphing is one of the easier topics, it is something we haven’t really fully immersed ourselves into since the first few months of the school year. I chose this lesson plan because I think it will be a great way for students to collaborate together online as they locate useful resources that can benefit the entire class. Pinterest is very user-friendly and filled with an abundance of educational resources (which I wasn’t even aware of!), so students will be able to maneuver through this social bookmarking process fairly effortlessly.

Describe the predicted advantages that will happen as a result of the revision: With the revision, one major advantage is that students will have a “one stop shop” for all of their resources and review materials on the graphs we learned. In the past, students would have to hunt around for their own research and refreshers on how to create the various graphs in the class. However, Pinterest boards that are shared with the entire class will make it so much easier for students to locate streamlined relevant content for their final project. Another advantage is the pure organization of using Pinterest boards. I think some students struggle with organizing their online thoughts and findings; social bookmarking will hopefully help these students. One last advantage is that this revision just makes things easier for students! By collaborating with each other and sharing their Pinterest boards, they only need to find the resources for one of the types of graphs, and their peers will be providing them with the information for the other seven graphs. 

Describe the predicted disadvantages that will happen as a result of the revision: I’d probably have to say that the disadvantages of this revision are the same as with most other group assignments. Small groups of students will work together to make their Pinterest boards. If there are disagreements or some students are MIA, it might cause some friction. Additionally, students need to rely on the other groups to create meaningful Pinterest boards that they can utilize to help them in their final project. If some of the groups do a poor job, the whole class will unfortunately suffer. This will result in students needing to do the research on their own, instead of being able to benefit from the class collaboration. (Fingers crossed each group does their job!)

Honestly, I never really knew what an RSS reader was before this assignment! I obviously knew about bookmarking tabs, and I rely on my Bookmarks to locate various sites throughout each day. However, this means I would have to scroll through all of my bookmarks to find the one website I needed. I now know about how RSS feeds allow you to get updates from all of your subscriptions simultaneously.

I hope to use RSS to enhance my own learning by being able to stay up-to-date on various blogs and websites that I now follow. If I was going to relate it to something that I’m familiar with, it almost reminds me of Facebook’s newsfeed; that organizes my friends’ posts in a way that typically shows the most recent posts or posts that received a lot of attention/comments. After subscribing to The Old Reader, I noticed how it shows a “recently updated” section on my RSS feed. This is really valuable for seeing when my subscriptions have new information available for viewing.

Additionally, The Old Reader showed me that one of the Statistics blogs I followed hadn’t been active for 2 years. However, after looking at it, the blog still had a lot of good videos and relevant information for my class, so I continued to follow it. I really liked how my RSS feed had everything nicely organized, and it was very easy to search for custom RSS feeds. Sometimes I get a little overwhelmed with all of the technology that is available today. I’m not always sure where to look or how to organize my ideas. I think the use of this RSS feed would be a great resource for me in the future.

Five of the RSS feeds that I subscribed to, along with my rationale, are:

1. Our instructor Chris’s blog, “Middle School? What Was I Thinking?”

This one I subscribed to as part of the requirements of this assignment. I’ve only ever taught high school math, so gaining a perspective on middle school was a nice change of pace. Especially with a class like music/choir, I have no background in this whatsoever. As teachers (and just people in general), it’s nice to put yourself in others’ shoes and learn about their past experiences. We can all grow from each other in that respect.

2. Teacher Rebecca Cauchon’s blog, “Jurupa Hills High School Photography 2022-2023”

I already mentioned this in my “3-3 Blog Project Inspiration” post, but I really like what this photography teacher is doing with her students. She has them each set up a blog showcasing their own photography. The teacher also has “Weekly Photo” submissions where students view each others’ photos and explain their favorite. This idea can relate to Statistics with all of the graphs we use and analyze. I’d like to follow this blog to see if there are any other ideas I can modify to fit my curriculum.

3. Teacher Tammy Skinner’s blog, “NCS Chemistry and Physics”

This is a blog from a high school science teacher. Her blog is all about organization and helping students who are absent find their work online. She has fantastic ideas about posting video lessons for absent students, copies of all handouts for students to have easy access, etc. I’d like to follow this because it provides a great template/model for me in setting up and organizing my own classes.

4. Jessica Hartnett’s blog, “Not awful and boring ideas for teaching statistics”

When I searched for “Statistics” in The Old Reader, I was pleasantly surprised to find this! Sometimes I can get so caught up in teaching to the curriculum that I forget to look for real-life, current examples of how Stats is being used. For example, this site had the prices of gas at 10 gas stations in Erie, PA. This is something very relevant, and I could use this data to analyze and use as an example with my students. I subscribed to this because it will help me easily locate current/relatable statistics, graphs, and scenarios that I can use with my students.

5. Bethany Petty’s blog, “Teaching with Technology” 

I tried to find a site that would have relevant information on integrating technology into my classroom. This site looks very user friendly, and it appears she posts weekly with technology ideas to try out. Especially with the online push, I need to get better at incorporating technology into my lessons, so this seemed like a great site to subscribe to. For example, her latest post was about “Top 5 Daily Websites for Teachers.” Things like this can really help me find ideas for my own classroom. Additionally, the author writes as if she’s having a conversation with you, which is refreshing.