Shaking Up the Routine!

This idea came from an article in my Zite paper. The article is a list of 100 quotes that innovate and inspire people. Here is the list of 100 quotes.

As I was standing in the back of my classroom, watching my students start the daily routine with the starters on the board I found myself thinking I'm bored. Of course, I decide to give myself a little pep talk here, self talking isn't just for the students. My self pep talk sounded something like this, "Whoa brain, stop there! This is my time to take attendance, get any paper together, and label work for missing students…not to make more work for myself. This isn't the time to start something new, everything always feels like playing catch up in the first few weeks of a new class and quarter, leave well enough alone." However, my pep talk only lasted so long and I started to wonder why I was feeling bored or uninspired in my routine with my kiddos. The problem was I have been in this class 14 weeks, they have only been in this class 5 weeks. I needed to shake things up for me, not them…everything is still new for them. I wanted a change but not something so drastic it would create more work for me and still be a starter students can complete without my assistance.

The directions to get their portfolios, sharpen pencils, download the needed document for the day stayed the same, but instead of starting the day with a problem or question I decided to include some of these quotes that promote innovation in people. Engineering is such an advanced curriculum no matter how you break it down, sometimes I forget just how young my students are. As learners they continually amaze me with the products they can create and the ideas they have, I forget they don't know how to self-talk, deal with frustrations, realize not everything has a right answer and reflect. I decided to start with a simple quote that I have displayed in both my classroom and prototyping lab also number 6 on the list.

"If you can dream it, you can do it." - Walt Disney

I love my Disney theme in my classroom, it keeps things slightly magical! In my classrooms I have a quote from Christopher Robin on the wall, Disney decor with fun character quotes about dreaming big and believing in yourself, and a Meet the Robinsons quote about Keep moving forward. This quote felt like a natural place to start in asking my kids to think about quotes. At the bottom of my regular directions students had the quote with the directions to write their response in their engineering journal either digital or paper. My directions were simply tell me what this means and respond. My kiddos all started on this quote quickly and shared plenty of information in their journal entires. They were entertained by the idea of talking about Walt Disney and cartoons in something as serious as engineering. However, they were excited and engaged, I couldn't wait to read all the entries!

The second quote I tried about 2 days later was "Do not fear mistakes. There are none." - Miles Davis.
The kiddos came in and started to get their supplies ready for the day. I can tell most are about to start their reaction to the quote as the classroom starts to settle down. I don't hear little keys typing away like the first time, instead I hear silence as they start. I look up and they are all (and I mean all) staring and the board and slightly confused. By the 3rd class I was starting to have deja vu! This was a universal reaction from 6th graders to 8th graders. In general things went the same way in all classes. I wait about 3 minutes, they aren't talking and they aren't writing..they are seriously perplexed looking at the board. I asked what was wrong and almost all the kids raise their hand and I start getting information. "This is weird, I don't understand this, I don't even know who Miles Davis is, how can there be no mistakes, you can't grade something if there are no mistakes...is there more to this quote?"Alright then! I told them to write that down, that's part of their reflection on this quote. When they have had a few minutes I started to discuss what this might mean. All the classes really just didn't get this quote, they couldn't take it for what it was worth. The more I think about it the more I realize why they struggle with my class the first 3-4 weeks. They are so used to being given direct instruction, detailed directions, and answers are either right or wrong. If you are wrong then you don't participate anymore. I honestly think a majority of my kids are smarter than we know but they are scared to participate and risk being wrong. This was amazing insight for me and why they want one answer in our designs...they want me to tell them if it is right or not and I can't. I can only ask them if they met the required criteria.

The third quote I've tried had to work a little differently, I knew this would be challenging. This is one of my favorite quotes, as most Einstein quotes are! "You can't solve a problem on the same level that it was created. You have to rise above it to the next level." - Albert Einstein

The kids came in the room, got their supplies, started the process to prepare for the day and started their quotes. This was one of the best quotes because the kids have never experienced problem solving like my class before. They want to fight the problem solving and no right answers, but in the end those who start to let those ideas sink in succeed the most. The kids who realize being right isn't the number one goal are the kids who say my class is their favorite. I was shocked at the way my kids felt about this quote. They shared things I never expected them to tell me, we've only known each other for 4-5 weeks. I heard stories ranging from witnessing abuse to parents with drugs to stories about the hardest problem kids have ever solved. Kids all found a way to relate this quote to a problem in their lives and how solving that problem required them to requires them to think differently than they have been raised to think and what has been taught. In a poverty cycle most kids don't realize the value education offers them, but I saw many of my kids seeing STEM as their way out of the cycle their family has. Many kids, both highly intelligent and the academically struggling felt like this class was giving them options they didn't have before. I agree with them in a way, some kids would never know engineering was their passion if they hadn't experienced it. The kids who never understand how science and math relate to each other get to see that magic.

I loved all the insight my kids shared and how willing they were to open up through their writing even though they hate writing! It was emotionally exhausting to read all the stories and provide feedback on each individual response. Still, I think this is something I will continue at least once a week. I think it was a wonderful source of inspiration and reflection. The kids were engaged and connecting the quote to their own personal experiences. Sometimes shaking things up works out nicely!

Portfolios in the Classroom

Who uses portfolios?

Portfolios can apply to any learner regardless of their education level or work setting.

K-12 Students

Portfolios can be used in many different ways for a K-12 learner. Options include a portfolio showing growth from kindergarten to 12th grade, accomplishments for each IL standard strings or Common Core strings, growth during a course, or growth during a series of courses. All situations create an opportunity to help students organize their work.

College Level Students

Many universities require an educational portfolio from pre-service teachers. As pre-teachers continue through their education courses they create a working portfolio to display their educational philosophy, created lessons, proof of understanding of students, and ability to utilize and communicate standards.

Educators

Current teachers can use portfolios to keep a record of student work, lesson plans including pictures/videos of students engaged in the activities and a reflection of the lesson and analyzing current teaching methods.

Professionals

Professionals can utilize many different types of portfolios.
Engineers use portfolios to display and organize their work.
Contractors use portfolios to show types of designs they have created.
Artists keep portfolios of sketches, drawings and paintings.
Writers keep published or private work in portfolios.
Models keep a portfolio of pictures and photo shoots they have completed.

Regardless of age, education or working atmosphere a portfolio keeps information organized in one location.

What kind of portfolios can I use in my classroom?

E-portfolios

E-portfolios can be any type of portfolio created in an electronic format such as websites, pages, scrapbooks or PowerPoint presentation. Electronic portfolios allow learners to utilize technology while creating a flexible portfolio that can follow the learner.

Currently I am testing two different platforms for digital portfolios. In my classroom we are using a free website creator called Weebly to create websites. We are also using Wikispaces giving each student a page to display work and reflections on a classroom wiki.

Display/Best Work portfolios

Display or best work portfolios display artifacts a learner believes shows off their best learning. Display portfolios provide an opportunity for learners to invest in their work with the knowledge it will be a product they share with others. Both the learner and teacher experience a sense of pride with best work portfolios, learners show what they can accomplish and teachers see engaged learners as a result.

Working Portfolios

Working portfolios have a mixture of completed and in progress work. Many classrooms could implement a working portfolio in their current notebooks or binders used for class. Learners keep artifacts that are complete, like homework and tests that are graded, and work in progress such as classroom projects.

Working portfolios best fit a single content area classroom. Learners would be able to evaluate and analyze the portfolio on a quarterly basis with their teachers.

Assessment Portfolios

Assessment portfolios are used to show what content a learner has mastered in a specific curricular area. Learners complete reflections on each artifact included explaining why the artifact is included in their portfolio and how the artifact shows their knowledge.Assessment portfolios require the learner to select appropriate pieces and be able to communicate the reason behind including the artifact.

What do your students put in their portfolios?

Students have endless options when it comes to artifacts included in their portfolio. Students have the ability to choose any artifact meeting the teacher's established criteria.

Engineering Portfolio Artifacts can include, but are not limited to...

• Engineering journal entries
• Design Sketches
• Inventor Parts
• Inventor Assemblies
• Inventor Drawings
• In Class Activities- pictures or videos
• Program Codes
• Learning Profile

How do students benefit from portfolios?

• Creates self-confidence by displaying best work
• Work is meaningful and will be kept for a time period
• Encourages computer and technology skills
• Engages students in the learning process
• Allows students to have choice in the selection of their work
• Learn organization
• Practice evaluating quality work
• Treated as an individual with a valuable point of view
• Improves communication skills with adults and teachers

How do teachers benefit from portfolios?

• Teaches organization through application
• Helps students see their growth rather than independent grades
• Students are able to review concepts and activities, reflect on the artifact, make connections between portfolio artifacts
• Allows students to be responsible for their learning
• Meaningful assessment displaying thought and knowledge rather than memorized information
• Allows teachers and students to evaluate and assess learning as a team rather than the teacher telling the student how he/she did
• Individuality: Getting to know each student on a more meaningful level
• Splits the responsibility of assessing and evaluating work with the student
• Promotes higher level thinking skills such as Bloom's Taxonomy analyzing, evaluating and creating

How portfolios changed my classroom

Engaged Students

This year was my first year using a website creator with my classes to make website portfolios. I introduced the concept to my students in the first week of school, however we started to run short on time in the classroom. The students had barely set up the websites by the end of the 2nd week of school. As a group, my 6th graders decided they needed an opportunity to learn and practice the website creator with some help from me. I asked them what they thought I should do because we really don't have the time in class. Students came back with a proposal the following day, have a "website party night" on Sunday evening-websites and pizza. I stood there confused for a few minutes...did my kiddos just ask for an extra night at school to do work voluntarily? As a teacher I can't ask for more, my students are demanding more time for education. In less than two days we had permission for an evening school event, pizzas ordered, and parents willing to come help monitor students. In the end, this 3 hour investment was the best and most rewarding thing I could have done for my classroom atmosphere, to get my students engaged in learning, and jump start meaningful relationships with my students.

Changes Classroom Assessment

I believe portfolios have changed my classroom assessment entirely. I am more involved with my students on a daily basis because of their digital content. I can constantly check in on my students and their progress, learn their frustrations and concerns, and examine their growth easily. I no longer depend on tests and quizzes for assessment, instead 3 times during each 9 week course I have one on one conferences with my students. My students are excited to have their conference with me, they want to show and share all they are accomplishing. It creates a time where my students are allowed to brag on their work and hear me tell them how proud I am.

I also use rubrics to help with assessment in portfolios during each course. Students have a list of required elements for each portfolio submission. Requirements include some artifacts I ask for specifically and others students choose based on the required criteria. It allows my students to still have choice in their artifacts but also meeting my needs as far as my curriculum goes.

I feel portfolios have changed my entire grading system. Students are more involved and excited about their work because it has meaning to them. My students take pride in their work and find meaning in each assignment rather than feeling like it is just another worksheet. I see my students working harder and communicating after the implementation of portfolios.

During each portfolio experience I realize frustrations will always happen. Students are coming to my class with different background knowledge and life experiences. However, most of these frustrations come from the lack of skills my students have. No one is teaching students how to evaluate, how to be creative, how to be organized or why they should care about their own work due to the stress and concern of state testing. It is a unique opportunity to be able to teach my students life skills they can use in any job, no matter what that job may be.


Some frustrations I have experienced with my students

• No understanding of what reflection means or looks like
• Students have never created and used a table of contents
• Students need taught how to use dividers and tabs, that papers belong behind the tab
• Some students never find an artifact that shows quality of work
• Organization
• Making meaningful connections in artifact reflections
• Technology skills have never included website creations or using wikis

I believe middle school students are ready for some of the necessary life skills that can be taught through portfolios.

Organization

I see my students who have never used a three-ring binder or dividers learning how to organize themselves, a skill all middle school students need. I could not imagine sending my students to high school having never used anything but a paper folder for organization. My 6th graders needed a 30 minute lesson on how to put the dividers in the binder, label the small file labels, make sure the dividers were in order, and papers go behind the tab instead of in front of the tab. I didn't realize just how new of a concept dividers would be for most of my students.

Reflection

My students are getting better with more experience in reflecting on their artifacts. The process of reflecting on a piece of work, what happened during a class period, or looking back on choices continues to be a challenging topic in my classroom. While my students are mentally capable of reflection, they have never practiced before. I find myself doing think-aloud reflections like math teachers solve problems step by step. My students roll their eyes and think it's silly, but are becoming better at reflecting on their own work. They don't realize this is a skill no one has ever formally taught them, and it takes repetition to get better. I know portfolios make a difference in student reflections when I look at some of the 6th grade beginning reflections and 8th grade final reflection, the growth is incredible. Student's ability to grow in their reflections is one area where I am always surprised with the results.

Student Relationships

We often talk about middle school students as social creatures, which they are. However, most middle school teachers forget their students don't just want to be social with their friends but also their teachers. Middle school students are at a unique stage where scratch and sniff stickers and a good job on their paper is still exciting to them. By utilizing electronic portfolios I have the ability to leave comments throughout the entire course on their webpages or wiki space. Many of my students open their pages and go straight to their journal to see if I have commented before they start working. As a result of these small exchanges students start to share more information and feelings about school, life and connecting the content to real life. They find themselves opening up to me in their webpages and my comments opening myself up to them as well.

Teaching Digital Skills

Now that I utilize websites and wikis, I find myself needing to teach my students what proper online behavior includes. I make sure they understand what information is appropriate to include, how to respond to other people's comments, passwords and usernames, online privacy, and how to respond to peer portfolios in a positive way. While these are all digital skills, my students are learning to utilize these skills in my classroom.



Ash, K. (2011). E-portfolios evolve thanks to web 2.0 tools. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2011/06/15/03e-portfolio.h04.html on November 1, 2011.

Association for middle level education (2011). Assessing and reporting progress through student-led portfolio conferences. Retrieved from http://www.amle.org/Publications/WebExclusive/Portfolio/tabid/650/Default.aspx on November 4, 2011.

Barrett, H. (2003). Recent research on electronic portfolios. Retrieved from http://electronicportfolios.org/research.html on October 23, 2011.

Barrett, H. (2003). The research on portfolios in education. Retrieved from http://electronicportfolios.com/ALI/research.html on October 21, 2011.

Danielson, C., & Abrutyn, A. (1997). Introduction to using portfolios in the classroom. ASCD.

Department of staff development, George counting public schools. (2010). Portfolio assessment. Retrieved from http://www.pgcps.org/~elc/portfolio.html on October 27,2011.


Edtp504 (poster)(2011). Digital literacy-using technology in the classroom. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5ySocUyI7I&feature=related on November 4, 2011.

Kelly, M. (2011). Student portfolios: Getting started with student portfolios. Retrieved from http://712educators.about.com/od/portfolios/a/portfolios.htm on November 1, 2011.

Slidedesigns.net (2011 April). Puzzle [image]. Retrieved from http://www.slidedesigns.net/2010/04/phttp://www.slidedesigns.net/2010/04/page/2age/2 on November 3, 2011.

Teacher vision. (2011). The portfolio process. Retrieved from http://www.teachervision.fen.com/teaching-methods-and-management/experimental-education/4537.html?detoured=1 on November 2, 2011.

Venn, J. J. (2000). Assessing students with special needs (2nd ed.). UppeSaddle River, NJ: Merrill.

My Personal Learning Network/ Environment

I was very overwhelmed as I started thinking about my personal learning network. I feel like I have a large learning network, but there are still times I feel isolated in my own engineering curriculum-being in a mix of everything but not always defined! I started to think of what resources and tools I run to when I need support.

The first thing I thought of wasn't technology or my go-to tools online, instead it was my "tribe". My "learning tribe" consists of the people who can give me a little support when my own pep-talks aren't enough anymore. Tribes and their unique impact are described in The Element. "When tribes gather in the same place, the opportunities for mutual inspiration can become intense." The people who give me the most intense inspiration in my immediate environment made by my students and other staff members in my building. However, I also have other connections in my professional communities like my support from Eastern Illinois University, Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Project Lead the Way, and National Science Teacher Association all give me energy to continue the daily work.

I also thought about the way I get information and communicate my information with others. I thought of gmail, talk, aim, Skype, my blog, twitter, scoop.it, and zite. I have direct emailing, interactive communication IMs, and curation sites.

I feel that I use software in my everyday learning and teaching like Autodesk Inventor, Evernote, Dropbox, iTunes, Excel, Access, Powerpoint, One Note, Word, Powerpoint, and Kindle readers. I create many of my lessons and notes for students in power points and word documents. The software portion of my network is not providing information back to me, however I still find it amazingly valuable in my network of learning.

The section that I felt had the most information and really could have expanded more on was my internet based resources. These are the tools and apps that use the internet. I have so many, but they are not all related to the way I am learning…more the tools I use in the classroom to enhance learning. For this reason, I limited the number of internet-based items I used to RSS feeds, email, youtube, google, ask, digg, delicious, vimeo, teacher pal (app), moodle, flicker, google earth, dropbox, blogger, and edmodo.

In most cases, I have arrows both leaving me and pointing back at me because I contribute and gain information from these sources.

The diagram I most related to was Katherine Pisana because her network was organized and easy to understand, she included common tools, internet resources and her own learning areas. I feel like she was able to give a unique glimpse into all of her learning styles not just internet based.

I believe I would add more to my PLN if it was able to be organized. I would have webs or continuations from my learning tribes including the internet-based tools I use with them or from them, I would have communications connecting to learning tribes and internet-based applications and more than just the basic software on my list. However, I didn't want to overwhelm everyone so I concentrated on the topics that were most important to me currently.

I believe my PLN is a hybrid of sorts because I do have technology based connections but I also include my personal connections outside of the Internet. I think I have a combination of curation tools, information gathering tools, publishing tools, and other software that would cover not only tool oriented learning, but also people oriented and use oriented resources.

Resources

Deleket (poster). 3d cartoon icons pack [icons set]. Retrieved from http://www.freeiconsweb.com/Free-Downloads.asp?id=86 on November 1, 2011.

Eastern Illinois Univerity (2011). Panther logo [picture]. Retrieved from htpp://www.eiu.edu on May 2009.

Effectivefive (poster). Social media icons set [icon sets]. Retrieved from http://www.freeiconsweb.com/Free-Downloads.asp?id=1582 on October 31, 2011.

ICTM (2011). [picture]. Retrieved from http://www.ictm.org on November 1, 2011.

NCTM(2011).[picture]. Retrieved from http://www.nctm.org/ on November 1, 2011.

NSTA (2011). NSTA logo [picture]. Retrieved from http://www.nsta.org/ on November 1, 2011.
Pizana, K. My ple [wiki post]. Retrieved from http://edtechpost.wikispaces.com/PLE+Diagrams on November 1, 2011.

Robinson, K. & Aronica, L. (2009). The element: How finding your passion changes everything. Viking Adult

*ipad app icons came from screen shots.