Maker Experiment #1

So I splurged and purchased the littleBits Starter Kit (my chosen Maker's kit for CEP 811) for($89)  my classroom.  Yeah...a little expensive for a single mother with the salary of a third-year teacher, but sometimes there are things worth the money.  And I am happy to say this is definitely one of them!

The Latest Graduate Class Assignment:

This week I was assigned to play around with my Maker's kit some more. And I did...when I could wrestle it away from my five-year-old.  (I must say, he was incredibly amazed and proud of himself when he was able to put the littleBits together and create a circuit/machine.  He loves the vibrating output bit.)  Anyway, I was assigned to 'tinker and imagine' with my Maker's kit and how I could use it with a classroom activity and connect it to learning theories. 

The Learning Theory:

In the late 1890s, Maria Montessori began to formulate what is now known as the Montessori Method in Italy.  Her philosophy and methods were based on her observations of children within their learning environments and the materials and lessons used.  The founding principles and concepts of Montessori theory can be applied across all ages. These principles are: Independence, Observation, Following the Child, Correcting the Child, Prepared Environment and Absorbent Mind. Maria Montessori held with these goals and beliefs in regards to the education of children.

“Montessori education is fundamentally a model of human development, and an educational approach based on that model. The model has two basic elements. First, children and developing adults engage in psychological self-construction by means of interaction with their environments. Second, children, especially under the age of six, have an innate path of psychological development. Based on her observations, Montessori believed that children at liberty to choose and act freely within an environment prepared according to her model would act spontaneously for optimal development.”  (Wikipedia)

Here is a video that briefly outlines Montessori principles.

Eissler, T., (2011, Jan 28). Montessori Madnesss.[Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GcgN0lEh5IA

The Montessori education and learning theory fits in well with the discovery approach I envision when using the littleBits kit in my classroom.  My students love to explore and have the ownership of discovery placed in their hands…why not give it to them?  Let them create and problem solve their way through the Maker’s kit while documenting their successes and failures?

The Maker’s Kit Activity:

Since the Montessori Method primary focuses on the learner’s choice and mastery of the task, I thought that this exploration activity would be a unique way to incorporate my littleBits Starter kit into my classroom.

•  I will introduce the littleBits kit to the classroom and give a very brief explanation of the learning outcome of this activity: Students will be able to explore, create and demonstrate at least one working machine/circuit. 

• Students sign up for time with the littleBits kit.  They will be given 15 minute appointments when they can explore and play with the kit components while taking notes and sketches of their findings.  Students will not be limited in the number of appointments they can sign up for. 

• Once students feel they have mastered at least one creation with notes and sketches, they will then write a post on the classroom Wikispace that summarizes their explorations and includes at least one picture of their creation. 

This activity follows the constructivist approach seen in the Montessori Method as students will build their knowledge of circuits and machines through their explorations of the littleBits kit.  Students have the choice of when and how often they can explore the kit.  The formative assessment of the blog post is done only when the student feels they have a mastery of the activity. 

References:
Hubbell, E. R., (2006). Authenticity & Technology in Montessori Education. Montessori Life, 18 (2), 16-20. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/ehost/detail?sid=3d1798a4-3d2f-4671-bca9-e9e604a8fc49%40sessionmgr111&vid=1&hid=118&bdata=JnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d#db=eft&AN=507860724

Hubbell, E. R., (2003). Integrating Technology into the Montessori Elementary Classroom. Montessori Life, 15(3), 40-41.  Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/ehost/detail?sid=e6de2230-0b52-4252-b6f7-04296fc1b550%40sessionmgr104&vid=1&hid=118&bdata=JnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d#db=eft&AN=507824176

Montessori education. (n.d.) In Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education

Thrifting in the Mitten

Any teacher loves a good bargain, right?  With school budgets crunching numbers for next year, extra monies for classroom staples such as paper and pencils are dwindling as I type this blog post.  Not to mention extra little luxuries such as composition books, grade level text books, glue, staples, markers, etc.  So forget the fun stuff that will force students to problem solve and get creative, right?

NO!

We must model creative problem solving.  WE are teachers...this is part of what we do...so model!  Go thrifting!  Wait...we already do.  :)  Most teachers (including myself) spend the summers scanning store shelves and garage sales for items we could use or repurpose in our classrooms.  We nag for store discounts...our pennies are precious (with pay cuts and rising insurance premiums).  I justify my out-of-pocket spending by asking this one question, "Will it truly enable my students to learn (insert unit/concept/learning goal)?"  If the answer is yes, then I figure out how much I can scrape by with and take a deep breath.

In comes my latest assignment from my current graduate class (CEP 811 through the MSU MAET Program, if your are curious...): Repurposing & Thrifting.  We were suppose to go thrift shopping (in person or virtually) and find some objects to incorporate/interact with our Maker Kit (I chose the littleBits Starter Kit) that could be used in our classrooms.

I love the littleBits kit!  It is fun (bright colors!) and easy to use...every little bit fits together with magnets.  This is fool proof for even the most electrically challenged.  (==> me!)  My five year old

son was able to create a few simple circuits as well.  The different types of bits are color coded by purpose: blue - power; pink - input; green - output; orange - wire.  All the pieces came in a nice little box with a nine volt battery and cable as well as an instruction sheet...but who needs instructions when there is discovery to be had?  I spent approximately three hours experimenting with the little bits and how they work together. 

For me, finding a way to incorporate this assignment into my lessons was kinda easy...electrical circuits are a national standard taught at my grade level, but I wanted to take this a step further and incorporate another science standard that I will be teaching next year: forces that shape the Earth.  There is a cool output bit called a bargraph (part 09) that has five lights that respond to the input.  It reminded me of a Richter Scale...earthquakes!  There is another bit that is a vibration motor (part 04) that I thought would work well for demonstrating the shaking felt from earthquakes.  A force that shapes the Earth!  Bingo!

Now for thrifting...I went to my local Goodwill but the only things I found that I thought would work well with my earthquake machine were Legos...and my son has tons of them at home and at school.  I knew I would need somethings that were small and lightweight. So I thrifted from my house too...some matches and smaller Legos.

Earthquake Machine directions:

1. You need the following bits: Battery and connector, Wall power bit (p1), Potentiometer bit (i6), Vibration motor bit (o4), Bar graph bit (o9), Wire bit (w1)
2. Connect the battery to the wall power, the wall power to the wire, the wire to the potentiometer, the potentiometer to the bar graph, and the bar graph to the motor (as in the picture below)

3. Cut a piece of cardstock approximately the size of a postcard or a little bigger out of a used box.
4. Place the circuit on the cardboard. Using it as a guide for positioning, mark where holes should be cut for the potentiometer, bar graph lights and the motor to pop through.
5. Cut the holes out of the cardstock face and make sure that everything fits well.
6. Take the cardstock off the circuit and decorate it as you like. Then, place the decorated cardstock back on your circuit.
7. Carefully flip the circuit and the cardstock over, and attach the circuit to your cardboard with electrical tape.  Masking tape also works well.
8. Cut a small square out of the card -board, about one inch on each side.  Loop a piece of regular tape to the back of the square piece of card-board.  Stick one side of the motor to the tape. .
9.  Make another loop of tape, and attach it to the cardboard front of your quake machine.
Stick the other side of the motor to your quake machine. You should now have a little platform that will quake when you turn on your circuit.

10. Test out your circuit. When you turn the potentiometer, you should see the bar graph light up. The more lights you see on the graph, the more your quake machine should shake
11. Once your machine has been tested and is working, put it in a safe place until you are ready to use it to simulate an earthquake.

Earthquake Machine Activity:

 Prior to creating the circuit, we will have activated prior knowledge and either read about earthquakes or watched a Discovery Education video, just to get students familiar with the Richter Scale and the basics of earthquakes.  Then students would be asked to thrift themselves by finding and bringing in small, light-weight items to test out on their earthquake machines.

In small groups or pairs, students would conduct active research with their earthquake machines with their found materials and collect data in their science notebooks such as the intensity of the 'earthquake,' the time it took to shake off the items, etc.  At the end, the entire class would share the results of their research.

Here is a brief video of my attempt at using my Earthquake machine:

 I can't wait to play around with my littleBits Stater kit some more so I can find more ways to incorporate it into my classroom!

(This project is very similar to one found on the littleBits Project Page...I found this after I came up with my concept.  My activity and extensions are entirely original work.)

littleBits. (n.d.). Quake Machine - Projects. Retrieved from http://littlebits.com/projects/quake-machine

Gamification Remix

As part of my graduate class in the MAET program through Michigan State University  I will be posting a few of my assignments via Teaching in the Mitten as a sharing platform.

This is the first assignment I will share.  I was required to create a short (one minute) video that explains one of the latest 'buzz words' in educational technology.  I chose gamification...it seems like a fun concept to encourage and promote student engagement in lessons.  What do you think?

http://popcorn.webmadecontent.org/1198

Please be kind!  This was my first attempt using Mozilla Popcorn Maker and Sound Cloud.  I'm sure that I will explore more with these programs as I begin to flip my classroom curriculum bit by bit!

National Poem in Your Pocket Day

Many know that April is Poetry Month.  Classrooms  across the country are in the middle of poetry units (except for mine...we save that for May).  But did you know that today is National Poem in Your Pocket Day? 

My students and I are loving this.  We have selected poems to carry in our pockets today to share with five people....any five random people when the opportunity presents itself:  the lunch line; recess; dinner; soccer practice. 

Here is a great resource with some PDF files you can quickly print and share with your students.

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/409 (look for Pocket PDFs for Kids)

As for me, my pocket is quite full today...Revenge of the Lunch Ladies: The Hilarious Book of School Poetry is my selection.  I plan on pulling this out multiple times today to regale any hapless bystander with some humorous lines.

Tech Savvy: Gaget Rules

As I enter my second week of my first graduate class, I am realizing that I am not as socially aware of using technology as an education professional as I thought I was. 

Here is a link to a blog post about using gadgets and technology 'carefully, with intention, for good.'  Exactly my goal when incorporating such things with my classroom curriculum. 

http://iamfutureproof.com/gadget-rules/

How do you use technology in your classroom?  Are you on Twitter?  Have a wiki?

Teaching Spelling and Writing in a Texting World...Good Luck With That

Photo: Teachers With a Sense of Humor Facebook Page

Do you have a cellphone?  Do you text?  Chances are the answers to both questions are 'yes.'  Personally, I've been on the texting bandwagon for about five years...maybe not even that long.  I have always preferred to have a conversation over the phone or email, both of which facilitate deeper communication.   When I do text, I spell out 99.9% of my words.  (This has lead to multiple confrontations with my iPhone's auto-correct feature...) My texts are also longer than just a few words.  Hey, I usually have a lot to communicate with people!  I am a social creature...like many of our students who have their cell phones permanently clutched in their palms!

In general, I think texting is a legitimate form of efficient communication.  But I am concerned that the 'lingo' used by many of my students is undermining the spelling and writing conventions/mechanics that I am mandated to teach.  What concerns me the most, is that despite many conversations with my students about audience and voice, they aren't differentiating between texting, journal entries, essays, and letter.  Generally, when someone writes an essay, the language used to express the thesis, evidence, and details is more formal English than what would be used to communicate a thought in a daily journal entry.  The grammar conventions are also more stringent: commas; paragraphing; apostrophes; correct spelling. This can even be witnessed in oral conversations.  For example, when I speak with my grandmother, my language is more formal and less slang, but when I'm having a conversation with a friend, some of those language conventions slide off to the wayside.    BUT...what I have repeatedly seen in my classroom through multiple years of reading and grading papers is that my students are unwittingly incorporating 'texting' into their writing.

I will never forget the first round of 8th grade English papers I ever corrected.  Over two pages, one student repeated wrote 'gr8'...this was 'gr8' because...isn't it 'gr8' that...  My jaw dropped.  When I conferred with that 8th grader, I asked why she chose to use that spelling of the word 'great' instead of the correct version.  She said that that was how 'great' was spelled.  We continued to have a lovely conference that included pulling out a dictionary and a Google search into the word origin of both 'great' and 'gr8.'  I patiently explained that when writing English, the traditional/formal/correct spellings of words such as great was the expectation, unless for the sake of writer's craft, a short hand or phonological spelling was necessary for dialogue, etc.  I thought my teaching point had been made and the error was on its way to being corrected.  WRONG.  That student and several others continued to incorporate text lingo into their writing at an alarming fluency.  It made editing/revising sessions even more tedious than normal.  We went through a lot more red pencils.

Even my current students are demonstrating signs that texting is infiltrating their young lives.  While the average 4th grader may have a cell phone, a vast majority have them for emergencies and limited features set by their parents.  So the likelihood that many of my students are currently texting is fairly low.  But the process is beginning.  Occasionally, I confer with a student about using the correct form of the word or using the right 'voice' in their writing.  We are currently drafting persuasive letters.  I asked my class, "Do you think Mom and Dad are really going to buy you that iPod if you write, 'im a gr8 student so i deserve a xbox 4 my bdroom.' ?"  You can hear the giggles that erupted in our writers' circle, can't you?  While I think they got my point, the issue is still at large.

Students learn by example and through hands-on, 'doing'...so it only makes sense that once they become fluent texters (and let's face it, that is going to happen...), the spelling and grammar conventions/mechanics they use the most will be what is engrained in them.  Unless they are able to fluently flip back and forth between formal and informal voices.  Spelling and writing are just two of many issues that are arising in elementary schools...keyboarding skills are almost non-existent.  Texting doesn't require knowledge of keyboard, only dexterous thumbs.  Handwriting isn't really even taught anymore except for printing.  Cursive writing is a relic of the 20th century. 

Check out this infographic released by Onlineschools.com. 

The beautiful thing about language is its ability to morph and model to express our thoughts, feelings, needs, desires, concerns, opinions, etc.  My concern is that unless I can effectively support my students and teach them the formal language conventions, including spelling and grammar, they won't be able to successfully communicate through more informal avenues.  My battle plan?  Using media formats such as blogging, Facebooking, Tweeting, etc but using examples and non-examples of these communications and having guided discussions about which is more effective at communicating the author's purpose or main idea.  Stay tuned...

Data, data, and still more data

Wow...where has the school year gone?  It is already the second week in November - report cards and conferences are just around the corner!

In my building, we are transitioning to our first year of being self-contained classrooms.  For everyone, this means learning new curriculums -  some more than others.  For instance, I am 'trained' in Reader's Workshop and taught our social studies units and Writer's Workshop last year in my team.  My team teacher taught the science and math units.  Well this year, I am responsible for all of it and have these two new curriculums.  Other teachers (last year's math/science teachers) are saddled with implementing Reading & Writing Workshops (no easy task!) and the social studies component.

HOWEVER, we have a brand new math curriculum - Bridges in Mathematics/Number Corner.  Everyone is in the same boat here...but I love this program!  It is very constructive and scaffolds student learning to allow them to build their mathematical knowledge with manipulative and concrete models.  But it is VERY, VERY time consuming.  Prepping for the lessons and the materials is extensive....a metric ton of copying.  And then there is the math calendar called Number Corner.  I was very excited about this!  It only takes 10-15 minutes each day but Number Corner builds computational fluency and exposes my students to concepts like measurements (metric & standard), fractions, observations, number sense, and problem solving every day! 

And the data!  This program has many assessments and data collection pieces the help me monitor and document student learning and growth.  It is very time consuming (when is data collection and analysis not?) and I often spend hours each week grading and inputting data.  All just for math...

I have separate sheets for whole class data on each pre-assessment and post assessment as well as the Number Corner check ups.  I also have individual student record sheets for data on each unit.  In my Math Data Binder, I have tabs for each student were I keep these record sheets and 'work samples' such as assessments and graded homework samples that I believe will be valuable evidence at our up-coming conferences.

Now, I just need to get my data binders for Reading and Writing Workshop to look just as good....but this is truly a challenge because Reading and Writing have so many components and it is very difficult to measure things like inferring, analyzing character traits, etc since it can be so subjective!  Sure, we have data from our Dibels/Daze benchmarks, Star Reader, and Fontus and Pinnell word lists, but these are only benchmarks and don't show growth (yet...winter benchmark is coming!). 

What do you do to track student learning and growth in Reading & Writing Workshops?