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!