u07a1 - Stouffer

To begin, at this point I find it unlikely that I will use Glogster in my classes anymore. While I used to use it here and there, it is no longer free-to-use. That fact alone is a bit of a deal-breaker for me. I already invest a decent amount of my own money into resources, tools, and equipment for my students and my classroom; thirty dollars just for an individual use subscription seems a been steep for me, let alone the one hundred dollar classroom-sized subscription I would need to enable students to create their own Glogster boards.

This leaves the Discovery Education Board Builder. In all honesty, this project was the first time I ever used Discovery’s Board Builder. It was fairly easy to use as far as the user interface goes. The design and layout options are simple, yet visually appealing and linear. I think the limited design options would help to keep students focused on the content, rather than just on the design (clearly the content is weighted a bit heavier in importance than the design itself). There are several ways I think I could use the Discovery Education Board Builder to provide students with the opportunity and venue to develop their own respectful and ethical minds. One thing I do think my students would struggle with is the limited selection of pictures and videos that Discovery has to offer. To fulfill the image requirement for our project, I needed to extend my searches out to the free-to-use filter of Google Image Search, and then cite the images I opted to use on the board itself. While this would be great for students to practice ethical and respectful search criteria and credit declaration, my students still struggle with capitalizing letters without a Caps Lock button, so this aspect might be pushing it for them. 

Overall, however, I think it would simply be projects and assessments, like the one I created for this final, that help students to develop their respectful and ethical minds. The more that students work with people of other cultures, with each other collaboratively, and with diverse tasks and data, the more ethical and respectful they will become. It doesn’t need to be done on specific technological tools such as Glogster or Discovery Education. In fact, I think they may develop their respectful, responsible minds more if they are given their choice of technology/media to use to accomplish certain tasks.

One final note, I set the sharing settings of my board as instructed on live.wilkes.edu. Please let me know if you cannot access it, and I will share my login information with you.

Stouffer - u07a1

Video:
https://www.powtoon.com/embed/ftlOzEjc1we/

Video Transcript:
After reading Howard Gardner's book, Five Minds for the Future, there are several ideas I plan on implementing in order to continue developing each of the minds. More specifically I plan on working to develop the minds of my students, and hopefully my mind develops in the process. Despite being vastly different on the surface, Gardner's five minds (Synthesizing, Disciplined, Ethical , Creating, and Respectful) are closely intertwined in the classroom.

First up is the synthesizing mind. I would like to transform more of my assessments from traditional tests to projects. Gardner mentions projects and themed curriculum as being two ways to employ the synthesizing mind. This would be an easy way to begin developing my students' minds as well as exercising my own.

Second is the disciplined mind. I believe Google Classroom is one ideal tool for developing discipline. Gardner notes, "we acknowledge the importance of science and technology but do not     teach scientific ways of thinking", and while I'm merely an English teacher, I feel it is imperative to teach my students disciplined ways of thinking. Encouraging my students to take responsibility for their learning through the use of Google Classroom is one effective way of practicing this.

Next is the ethical mind. On page 19 of his book, Gardner stated, "Individuals without ethics will yield a world devoid of decent workers and responsible citizens: none of us will want to live on that desolate planet". For this mind, I would like to utilize Google's collaboration and editing features as often as possible. If my students are working to help their fellow classmates improve, they will be fulfilling the ethical mind by practicing serving the greater good and going beyond mere self-interest.

For the creating mind, I would like to use more applications like FlipGrid that allow students to fulfill Gardner's picture of the creating mind: a mind that goes beyond existing knowledge and synthesis to develop new questions and pose new solutions. FlipGrid and similar technology provide the blank slate and the tools that will allow students to employ this mind.

Finally, we have the respectful mind. For this one, I would definitely like to continue practicing activities such as Socratic Seminars with my students. It will be activities like these that help to teach our students how we relate, how we think, and how to value differences among us. All of these are described by Gardner as pillars of the respectful mind.

Reference:
Gardner, H. (2008). Five Minds for the Future. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press

u06a1 - Stouffer

After watching and listening to Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis's virtual lesson on "Flattening Classrooms", my first thought was how old it was! It was recorded in 2012--over half a decade ago! Nevertheless, there were several conversations that occurred that prompted me to think of things I currently do in my classes with my students. One of the first things they discussed during the video was about student choice. This is something I see in some classes across my building, but definitely not all classrooms. I try to incorporate as much student choice as I can while still maintaining boundaries and high expectations in my room. For example, in class students often work on tic-tac-toe assessments where they choose three activities (in a row) to complete to demonstrate mastery (and win tic-tac-toe). Assessments like these let me easily manipulate what types of activities students are completing while still allowing for a ton of student choice. Another example is the weekly article of the week that students work through. I know how busy my middle schoolers are, so rather than give them this homework assignment and make it due the next day, I distribute it each Monday and it is due each Thursday. This allows students the choice of when to complete their own homework. Ultimately, I think that offering students choices when you, the teacher, can, fosters the respectful minds of your students. They may not express it outright, but they appreciate it when they can tell you are trying to make it interesting/accessible for them and that breeds respect.

Later in the video lesson, Lindsay and Davis discussed what a flattened classroom is per say. They generally stated that a flattened classroom is one that is "open to the rest of the world". Give all of the student privacy expectations in most districts, this can be a difficult feat to accomplish. However, when it is tackled, it helps to develop that ethical mind in our students. I can honestly say that due to my district's restrictions, I have struggled with this. Just this year, I reconnected with a former coworker of mine (we used to teach together in Buffalo, NY and he is now in Seattle, WA while I am in Hollidaysburg, PA). We discovered that we both were teaching lower-level 7th grade English classes (this was surprising to both of us, as he used to teach social studies and I used to teach science). We decided that each of our classes would do a Flat Stanley-style narrative writing project based on the novels we were reading in our individual classes. My classes read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and his classes read The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. My students created "Flat Scrooges" which they took on 'adventures' that the real Scrooge never would have 'wasted' money on. His classes created "flat heroes" who went on adventures of their own. We then mailed each other our classes projects. My students continued the adventures of his classes' Flat Heroes, and his students did the same with our Flat Scrooges. We are nearly ready to mail them back, pore over them, and then set up a Google Hangout so our students can finally officially meet. This project has been so successful that I reached out to a former classmate of mine from undergrad who also has 7th grade ELA classes. We are in the midst of planning a project for our classes where they write, direct, and film video book trailers for their favorite books that we will then exchange with each other in another pen pal-like scenario. I think further opportunities like these can only help in developing my students' respectful and ethical minds.

Davis, V. and Lindsay, J. (2012) "Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis on Flattening Classrooms". Future of Education. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVZuwIhjQvA

u05a2 - Stouffer

Spotlight on Strategies: Socratic Seminar

What instructional goal/challenge does your SOS address? 
To begin, my spotlight on strategy addresses a number of PA Common Core State Standards:
CC.1.2.7.B Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly, as well as inferences, conclusions, and/or generalizations drawn from the text.
CC.1.4.7.I Acknowledge alternate or opposing claims and support claim with logical reasoning and relevant evidence, using accurate, credible sources and demonstrating an understanding of the topic.
CC.1.4.7.U Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and link to and cite sources as well as to interact and collaborate with others, including linking to and citing sources.
CC.1.5.7.A Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions, on grade-level topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

CC.1.5.7.B Delineate a speaker’s argument and specific claims, evaluating the soundness of the reasoning and the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.
Most importantly, my SOS gets students thinking. This is, in my opinion, the ultimate goal of every teacher of every grade and subject. It also utilizes different technologies and digital medias, which addresses the challenge of meeting our students at their level via their interests and learning preferences. 

What additional value does the integration of digital media bring to your idea in terms of students’ understanding of the concept or topic?
The digital media that I integrated into this Socratic Seminar strategy brings deeper reflection and deeper interaction and engagement between the students and the topic at hand. if students are engaging and reflecting on a deep level, they are more likely to not only understand the concept or topic, but understand it thoroughly. Incorporating the digital media that I chose, elevates this classic class strategy to new levels. 

u05a1 - Stouffer

Well, I sat down and spoke with a few of my yearbook students after school this week. Given the students I sat down to speak with, I probably got a bit of a biased answer! If I would have talked with some of my other students, I'm sure their responses would have been lackluster in comparison with a bit more, "Teachers should just let us use our phones and listen to music alllllll the time." 

When I asked my students the questions directly (What do they really value currently and/or what would they change about their learning environment when it comes to digital media and technology supporting creativity?), they give me a bunch of blank stares. So, I opted to reword the questions around a bit to get to the needed answers. I first asked what creative things they have done in their classes that they particularly enjoyed. Some of the responses I received were Google Apps, STEM Auto CAD [creating 2D designs], the 3D printer, Escape Rooms, their word processing class, their phones, and "the Internet". While the final two answers were a bit vague, I thought the initial answers were great. I was especially excited to hear that they enjoyed the Escape Rooms. I just started incorporating grammar lessons with Escape Rooms, so I'm glad it was a success. 

The second question I asked was how they used technology in their classes. I think one of the best answers I received was the Tiger TV class (the classes of students who write, practice, and perform live for our morning announcements. This is basically the perfect blend of technology and creativity. Students generally control the content and the features. Additionally, students are the ones controlling the camera, the mics, the boom, and the prompter screens. Overall, it seems as though our students are satisfied with the current levels of creativity and technology incorporation. 

u04a1 - Stouffer

To be honest, I was a little disappointed when I saw our task for this unit's blog post. Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk, "How Schools Kill Creativity" is one that I have had to view over and over again in my education courses (both in my undergrad and during this grad program). I've frankly run out of things to say! I'll give it a shot though.

Do schools kill creativity?

The obvious answer to this question is yes. I would venture to say every student in this class is going to answer similarly, unless they work for some awesome Expeditionary Learning Charter School or something. Every public school teacher faces the ever-present dauntless task of preparing students for standardized assessments. Every public school teacher feels pressured by the administrators at their school to ensure their students perform well for one reason or another. This definitively causes a deficit of "creative learning opportunities" in the classroom, as teachers are focused solely on content, content, testing strategies, and more content.

The less obvious answer to this is no. More specifically: no schools do not kill creativity — state educational protocols (fueled by the need to acquire funding from the federal government) kill creativity. If less pressure was put on teachers to get students to perform well on standardized assessments, there would be more time for creativity and the arts. Sir Ken Robinson sums up this problem slightly differently in his TED Talk "How Schools Kill Creativity" when he states, "If you were to visit education, as an alien, and say 'What’s it for, public education?' I think you’d have to conclude, if you look at the output, who really succeeds by this, who does everything that they should, who gets all the brownie points, who are the winners — I think you’d have to conclude the whole purpose of public education throughout the world is to produce university professors. Isn’t it?". When we only focus on preparing students for tests, we are effectively accomplishing exactly what Robinson outlines above.

How can you use digital media to bring creativity alive in your classroom?

This is a much easier question to answer. My district is in the process of going one-to-one with Chromebooks. Currently only the high school has made it that far; the hope is to get 9th and 8th grade to one-to-one next year. Given our goals of technological advancement, we have seen an increase in available resources over the last two years. I have a Chromebook cart that lives in my room and is shared with the other teachers in my wing. I try to incorporate these into my lesson plans as often as I can without monopolizing them.

Here are some of the things I do with our Chromebooks that encourage creativity while still furthering the students' grasp of the content we need to master by the end of the year (read: by PSSA season).

FlipGrid: Occasionally when students do a Collins Writing, I will have them hop on a Chromebook and record their response or a summary of their response on FlipGrid. This may not seem hugely creative, but my students LOVE recording themselves, seeing themselves, and personalizing their videos. Are they still writing and analyzing? Yes, but in a much more creative way for the end goal. Linked to the title of this example is my students' most recent FlipGrids. They read an article, analyzed it, did a Socratic Seminar with it, wrote a Collins Type 1 reflection, and recorded a FlipGrid at the end. Check it out!

Google Slides: Google's G-Suite for education is really a dream when it comes to technology integration in the classroom. Linked to the title of this example is quite possibly the most boring topic we tackle in 7th grade English: PSSA Vocabulary Terms. While I do teach these concepts individually, students need to know the definitions as well. Rather than breaking out a dictionary, I have each class create their own visual dictionary using the integrated creative features in Slides. Check it out!

Pear Deck: This is an Add-On for Google Slides that I just discovered in the last few weeks. It turns a normal Google Slides presentation into an interactive one for students. While I cannot link a presentation that I've created (you need to view it live with a code), I did link an article that describes the add-on in depth and shows examples. Students have a device (a Chromebook in my case) while the teacher is presenting the Slides. There are slides interspersed that students must directly engage with. That could be a matching activity, a true or false question, a written response, etc. At the end of the presentation/notes/whatever the teacher can export the students' responses and use them as formative assessments if they wish. If anyone would like to see how it works live, I'd be happy to set up a time to demonstrate it.

Resources:


Robinson, K. (2006, February). Do schools kill creativity? Retrieved February 08, 2018, from https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity

u03a2 - Stouffer

Prezi on MLA Citations and Plagiarism


The media-infused presentation I created can easily help to foster the development of both the disciplined and synthesizing minds. In Chapter 2 of "Five Minds for the Future", Howard Gardner argues that, "The training of disciplinarians takes place through ... the modeling of ways of thinking (“here’s how we go about proving a theorem of this sort”); the successful completion of certain signature assignments (“that’s a good analysis of Sonnet 23; let’s see whether you can carry out an analogous interpretation of Sonnet 36”); the provision of timely, useful feedback on earlier disciplinary efforts...and the passing through successive hoops en route to becoming a master of the discipline (“you’ve now learned how to write a good lead to the story; the next job is to order the paragraphs so that the important points will survive, even if the story has to be cut in half”)". I realize that is an exceptionally large quote to pull from the text; however, I feel as though I highlighted the key portions that are relevant to the presentation I created. The Prezi Presentation I created accomplishes the above steps from Gardner that delineate how to train the disciplined mind. This Prezi models how to go about properly citing texts in MLA, it shows the success criteria, it could be used to provide timely, useful feedback, and it scaffolds the "passing though successive hoops" on the way to mastery. 


This Prezi presentation also helps to foster the developments of a synthesized mind. Works cited pages are a literal demonstrations of synthesis in themselves. Further, the arrangement of this Prezi allows for it to be used in rather versatile ways. After initial instruction, students can come back to it as a means of reference so that they cited correctly in future assignments. It also provides a bridge for beginning interdisciplinary work. In Chapter Three of his book, Gardner states, "Perhaps the most ambitious form of synthesis occurs in interdisciplinary work" and "Even when students have begun to master the disciplines singularly, there is no guarantee that a combination of disciplines will be appropriately or productively linked". Learning how to cite sources correctly allows students to properly integrate sources of various origins and disciplines, thus accomplishing "the most ambitious form of synthesis". The mix of disciplines would then have been appropriately and productively linked, as students will have been able to use the Prezi on proper citations and plagiarism to accomplish this.