Common Craft Style Videos for Assessment

We've been using common craft style videos as a formative assessment tools for a few years now. I think they are a great way for students to demonstrate understanding of a subject -- and they're fun! If you don't know what Common Craft videos are, take a look at the sample below. The company, Common Craft, makes a videos that explain things "In Plain English" and use drawing to help their explanation. This is one of my favorites that I've used many times to not only introduce common craft videos, but wikis as well.

So how does this apply to school? Think about students creating this kind of video to explain what they've learned about a topic. Think about then being able to use that video to help teach others!  My favorite example is citations. I know what you're thinking -- ugh, citations. Guess what, our students think that too! It's important that they know how to cite sources but let's face it, it's not the most exciting topic out there (sorry librarians and English teachers who love them!). Using these videos as a final assessment really let's us know if they get it.

The unit starts with our librarian teaching several lessons on citations. She covers the what, why and how which we feel is really important.  Students get a lot of practice with creating citations for websites, books, and images/artwork. The final step is the video. Once we've watched a few examples and discussed them, we go over the a rubric (in fact this year we created it with our students). Students work in teams of two. We introduce storyboarding as a planning tool and then review that storyboard with students to keep them on track. We build in time for drawing and practice. We finally film the videos. Ours aren't nearly as complicated as the professional ones. One of guidelines is that the entire video is filmed in one shot so that no editing is required. Below are a few pictures of student drawings and pictures and a video of students filming.

 

So how do we film them? Right now we're using a flip camera that attaches to a stand our maintenance stand made for us. We put down white poster board and mark the frame edges with masking tape. We do need to think about changing it going forward since Flips are no longer made but for now it works.  Take a look at the pictures below to see our set up.

 

 


When it's all done we have a teaching video on how to make citations.

I hope this has given you inspiration to try this yourself. It really is a great way to delve into video without adding the added complexity of editing. And students learn a lot!

Skyping for Real World Connections

On Friday, I facilitated a conversation between our 6th grade and Dr. Ellen Prager, a marine scientist. Dr. Prager is in Miami and of course we could never bring her here to speak with our students. But who needs to do that when you have Skype? It was truly an amazing experience for all of us.

The girls learned a few things from this experience. The obvious is that they learned more about the ocean and taking care of it. They also learned how to prepare for a meeting with a professional. They prepared questions that were relevant by researching Dr. Prager and her work.  They learned how to present themselves to a remote audience. Most girls had an opportunity to either ask or answer a question and I was so pleased with how they presented themselves. They learned that women have successful careers in science. Finally, they once again learned that there is more to learning than textbooks.

Here is a very brief clip of Dr. Prager speaking with our students.

One of my goals for this school year is to expand our classroom walls by connecting with experts as well as other classrooms. If we want to move away from textbooks as a basis of learning and towards a model where they are one of many resources used to teach a topic, bringing in real world voices and experts is essential. Learning from and interacting with experts not only allows a deeper understanding of a topic, but it's quite a motivator as well!

6th Grade Ocean Unit

I am working with our 6th grade science teacher on her current UbD lesson on the oceans. What started as a simple unit exploring the questions, "Why are the oceans important?" has blossomed into what's turning out to be a really amazing unit. I just love when this happens.

Bonnie and I met to discuss what she came up with and started bouncing ideas off of each other. She showed me the introductory video she used with the girls. It was Robert Ballard speaking at TEDx.
Here is the inspiring video that really started it all.

She was so excited and told me how excited the girls were and that made me excited! We talked about how great it would be if the girls could actually speak with a marine scientists. SOOOO..... I sent out a few emails and Dr. Ellen Prager agreed to Skype with us. We're Skyping tomorrow and the girls have been working this week to prepare questions for their conversation.

We then began discussing the transfer for the unit. Bonnie wants to make a documentary that will convince others of the importance of our oceans. To do that they will of course need to know the "textbook" knowledge about oceans and put it all together in a meaningful way.  As we discussed, I was thinking that since they are doing so many great things, they should document their journey and learning. We decided to create a collective blog to do just that. Each day two girls will create a blog entry on their learning and insights of the day.  You can find it at http://mrscoceanexplorers.blogspot.com/.  I can't wait to see how it turns out.

I'll probably post again as we progress but I am so excited about this unit that I had to post today.

New Year's Resolution

I've been very inconsistent with blogging. Things have been busy at school and home but that's no excuse. SO my New Year's Resolution is to blog more. I'm going to set a schedule and stick to it. No excuses. Look for a blog post from me at least weekly.

Happy New Year!

Good Things Are Happening

I haven't blogged in a couple of weeks because I've been really busy with three different projects.

The first was teaching Internet Safety to 7th grade and then having them assist me in teaching it to grades 3-6.  What a great success. Talk about ownership of material. It reinforced my belief that if students have a real purpose for learning something they put more into and get more out of it.  We presented yesterday with a mix of video, skits, and teaching. I did learn that guidance is ever important when having students create their own products. I met with each group every class period and really had to steer them in the right direction. It's more tiring than presenting content but worth it. 

My second project was assisting our 8th grade students create book trailers about novels based on Fairy Tales. Our English teacher led the project and brought me in for lessons on storyboarding, construction using PhotoStory, and technical assistance.  I think they turned out well.  Below are two examples.
















My final project was working with our 5th grade teachers to create "Nature's Fury" newscasts. This was a cross curricular unit that both of our teachers worked on together. They read about various storms as apart of their ELA curriculum and learned about the storms in Science.  As a culminating project, they researched one type of storm, worked in pairs to write a newscast about that storm and then filmed them with me. We used iMovie's green screen picture which made it a breeze. What I loved about this unit is that it covered so standards and content, but was engaging and stimulating at the same time.  To view the finished products, visit the 5th Grade's wiki at http://thefiftyunitedstates.wikispaces.com/NaturesFury.

Now that those three big projects are wrapped up I'm looking forward to working with teachers to figure out what's next!

Learning from Frustration

I knew going into this year that there would be ups and downs. There is much to be learned from the downs. So what is my down? Our teachers are frustrated. They want to do well but have hit a block with UbD and are getting stuck in Stage 1. I think that they are expressing this through throwing up their hands and saying "It's too much!" This has made me really sit and think about where I want our teachers to be right now. What I concluded is that maybe we're going too far to fast for some. They are so hung up in terminology (Enduring Understandings, Essential Questions, Transfer, Meaning, Acquisition) that they are loosing site of the end goal - teaching for understanding.

So for some we're going to slow down. Let's throw out the jargon and decide one thing - what do you want students to understand at the end of this unit. Once we are successful with that we'll break it down more.  I'll let you know how it goes!

Reflections on Our First 6 Weeks

It has been a seriously busy, but amazing first month of school.  As with any new school year, there is a lot to get done and it seems like there is never enough time.  However, I'm proud to say that I work at a school where everyone is willing to try new things.  Since school started we have:

• rolled out 87 netbooks to 6th and 7th graders
• rolled out a netbook cart of 19 for grades K-2
• added netbooks to grades 4 and 5 so that grades 3-5 are 2:1 with netbooks
• taught 3 lunch and learns for teachers on Socrative (me) and our SmartTable (Christelle)
• taught all students in grades 1-5 to use Typing Pal
• taught middle schoolers how to get started and stay organized using OneNote
• met with every teacher to discuss their goals for tech integration and teaching using Understanding by Design
• started wikis with 5th grade (http://thefiftyunitedstates.wikispaces.com/), 3rd grade (http://multiplemeaningwords.wikispaces.com/) and 2nd grade (http://villa-planets.wikispaces.com/)
• created Wordles with 1st and 2nd grade
• taught 8th graders about the importance as well as the logistics of desktop publishing
• presented to parents on our philosophy around 21st century teaching and learning and our netbook initiative
• supported teachers in taking risks by teaching in new and different ways (this has been BY FAR the most rewarding on the list)

Phew! No wonder we're exhausted! But we wouldn't have it any other way.

Missy