Updating an Effective Project: The (Digital) Poster Show

So this year's motto for my classroom is the wise word's of Yoda
     "Try not! Do or do not, there is no try"

And I was reminded of these words after reading a couple blogs by some inspiring teachers (Flying by Coffee with Chloe and The Story of Carl by iTeach and iLearn). With those blogs rolling around in my head and knowing I was coming up on an effective project I have my students do in class, I decided to update the project and move it into the 21st century.

The project is a poster show. In short the students work in small groups and create a poster over a section of the unit material, including a summary of the material, key vocabulary needed to understand their section, and an illustration. The students also must develop 2 questions from their section, and then will go around answering each other's questions to cover the whole unit. Students not only learn the unit (they put things into words their peers can understand, and usually come up with good illustrations and examples) but they also learn how to write effective questions (sometimes by seeing how some groups wrote bad questions that are hard to understand).
The updated version - students will no longer be making posters but Prezi's. No longer will I just give them a few pages from the book to cover, but topics (they can still use the book but know outside resources are required as well). They are still responsible for coming up with questions and examples/illustrations on their own. The new wrinkle is they are also going to have to teach the other groups their material as they do a gallery walk. My hope is this takes this effective project deeper.

Thanks to iTeach and iLearn and Coffee with Chloe for pushing me to do something instead of just thinking of doing something.

20% Model (Genius Hour)

So after much research, reading, thinking and planning for this school over the summer I decided to put all that time and thought into action. I wasn't going to try something new, because that means at the first sign of failure, I'm done and reverting back to old habits and ways. No I was taking the words of a wise man ...

"Try Not! Do or Do NOT, there is no try"

This has become the theme for this year in my classroom. I expect my students to do not just try.

So today was the second day of Genius Hour, and things are going great. Students are excited to come to class on these days, they are reading medical journals, studying architecture, and watching TED Talks. They are challenging themselves in ways I never would have imagined before.