The Doctor Visits

Love when students make nerd references in their costume selection (it's a pep rally day with a theme of Halloween)

Simply Amazing!

If the goal of education is to inspire students to learn and foster innovation, then this group and school have it. I hope to one day to provide students the space and ability to be this innovative within my classroom.

Students Invent New School Lock

8 Weeks into the Year: An Observation

So we have completed 8 weeks of our school year - a forth of the school year is done!

Here are a couple observations ...

1. My students are more engaged, and are performing well on (in their words) "hard assignments." In the past (P.F. or Pre-Flipped Era) my class was straight forward - I would lecture, students would take notes, we would do a review and then test. Nothing overly fancy - except my random Superhero/Star Wars references. Now my students are finding the information they need (with guided helped at times), putting their findings into practice, and then producing a product of their findings (be this a graph, video, or some other product).

2. My students are struggling - they are so use to being handed the material they need. They struggle to work with not very detail, step by step, directions. I give them parameters, the problems, a starting point on what they need to solve the problems, and we even talk as a class on the material needed. Yet they struggle because we have trained them over the years to do not learn. Teaching them how to find the material they need, and then how to apply that information is a struggle - both for me as a teacher and the students.

In a lot of ways my class is harder than it has been in the past, and I think this is a good thing. And yet with this increase in rigor, my students are stepping up (though there are growing pains) for the most part.

Looking forward to see what the rest of the year has in store.

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.  

Love Trying New Things (Doesn't Always Mean They Work)

So we are three days into a new school year, and I'm already tired. It takes some time to readjust to teaching each year. But getting me through this year - new ideas, activities, and philosophies.

So far this year I have decided to try a couple new things - flip one of my classes (AP Euro, more on why in a moment) and the 20% model (in standard economics). These new adventures in education have me and my students excited about the possibilities this year holds.

In my AP Euro History class, it's the first year I'm teaching the course which adds its own excitement, I have decided to flip as much as possible. Since it is my first year teaching this particular course, it made since for me to pick it to flip. I'll be making most things from scratch anyway, so I decided to just flip it from the beginning rather than redo everything later. The possibilities that this brings are exciting. I look forward to holding more in depth Socratic discussions in class and less stand and deliver lecturing. The thought of this also has the kids excited - they also like the idea of trying to flip sections of chapters as well.

In my standard economics class, I am experimenting with a new concept to me - the 20% model. Giving the students almost complete control of their learning for 20% of the class. They pick a topic or question they want to find the answer to and they research and report their discovery back to us. I have kicked around lots of ways to do this, to keep the kids accountable, and read the Nerdy Teachers post about the same idea and will be stealing his (seeThe Nerdy Teacher) for details. The kids loved the idea of this - and I love the idea of it but also love the idea that it may or may not work. And as I told my students, it's okay to try new ideas (based on good research, thoughts, and reason) and they not work. It means you do more research, thinking, and reasoning and then try again. This has me the most excited - it will either succeed and be awesome or (in the words of my seniors) be an EPIC FAIL.

Here's to 2013-2014 - the year of new ideas (and possible failures, and that's okay)

New Year = New Adventures

So in addition to teaching my usual dismal science productions (economics and AP Macroeconomics) I have added two new roles for myself.
1. I'll join the fellowship of AP European History teachers. Very excited by this, I am a history major that until now has never actually taught a history course.
2. I am now the social studies department chair for my high school. This is both exciting and terrifying all at once.

So next year promises to be one that is challenging in many ways. I'll be continuing the journey of integrating edtech into my classes, adding a new course to my schedule, and taking on a larger leadership position.

Stay tuned, it'll be a fun year.

2013-2014: The Fellowship of Challenges