Must Reads for Improving Group Collaboration

I wanted to recommend a great free PDF online called THE AGILE SAMURAI.  It is an easy to ready brief, but thorough introduction to the world of AGILE project management. The book relates Agile strategies to the development of computer software, but I teach a a Project lead the Way Engineering Design and Development course to about 65 students per year, and we incorporate many of the tools used in Agile business.

Scrums, Standups, and Taskboards, are all things that I recommend that you consider implementing when you assign a project to students that will require long term planning, and collaboration efforts. It can be implemented for a project that will take a couple of weeks, to several months, to years...

Once you have read that, I would recommend SCRUM: A BREATHTAKINGLY BRIEF AND AGILE INTRODUCTION.   Also an easy read, once Agile Samurai sets a more thorough understanding of the theories of Agile Project Management, Scrum..., will work as a terrific short hand guide to keep nearby for easy reference.

I find that having students use this approach has two-fold benefits: 1) Collaboration is facilitated much more easily, the communication among group members is tremendous, and the delegation of responsibilities is visual while using a Taskboard.  2) It is a terrific introduction of a strategy being used in the business industry currently, and will only help them in their futures when needing to tackle large abstract projects, by reducing them to smaller parts, and completing smaller milestones toward a larger end product.

How Important Could Those Tests Be?

This past week, a 49 year old Principal in New York, unfortunately committed suicide, among allegations that she was responsible for changing test scores for her third graders' English Common Core exams.  The test scores of those third graders were subsequently "thrown out".  If the scores of the third graders who unnecessarily stressed over the exams for the weeks leading up to their treacherous three days of examination, were just "thrown out", then how important can they be to the future of those students?  I mean, they are now gone...no record of how they performed...no measure of their comprehension through the third grade?  Will their academic futures forever be ruined?  Will they have reduced opportunities for scholarships and college acceptance? Will they be turned away from their first job? Denied a loan application? I mean...I am petrified that they will be at a disadvantage when compared to the rest of the students in the country who took, and had the tests scored!

Obviously there has been a great deal of sarcasm inserted here...more obviously: the value of testing third graders so strenuously should be examined for its true benefits!

I'm not a parent, but I am an uncle...My reflection on THE HOMEWORK MYTH by Alfie Kohn

   I recently finished reading a book recommended to me by Josh Stumpenhorst (@stumpteacher) by Alfie Kohn, titled The Homework Myth. I will admit that for years I have been on the opposite end of the spectrum in some of the reasoning of the book, which made the read, all the more interesting.  I teach engineering in a great school with very actively engaged students, and have always leaned towards being rigid with due dates, and penalizing students for late work.  I have tried to never give "busy work" as HW, rather I have always tried to give meaningful assignments that would just keep students "refreshed" for the next lesson that may be several days away (block schedule and weekends).  Sometimes I have asked that students read ahead of time, 10 slides of a curriculum provided PowerPoint, and take Cornell notes, hoping that they would retain 20% of what they read, and have some word/idea recognition when we reviewed it in class.  I did this thinking I was helping them prepare for colleges that will expect readings to be done outside of class, and ahead of class, in order to more efficiently utilize class time...
   After reading the book, I understand and agree with many of the points made.  I do not have children of my own, but I do have three nieces and a nephew (with the oldest going into second grade).  After reading the book, I could not agree more with many aspects of his arguments against HW in the primary and middle grades, and even many of the points regarding secondary school HW.    Sir Ken Robinson put it nicely when he said "Kids are not young adults...they are kids". As an uncle, I agree that my nieces ad nephews should not be bogged down with excessive HW, and reduced snack and recess time.  Those grades are the times of their lives where the foundations for learning how to cooperatively "play" and socialize, build relationships, learn to accept differences in others, and develop self management strategies.  If we do that right in those lower grades, then when they are asked to creatively explore, communicate, develop, innovate, and create...they will not only do so, but they will do so with gusto, applying the self management and ability to work with others, strategies that we have also encouraged and allowed time for.
   I worry about the path that the U.S. education system is taking with excessive standardized, high stakes tests to students throughout their entire development cycle.  The stress is becoming enormous on the students, and the teachers, and the addition of hours of HW being given, to compensate for those already stressful tests, is something that grossly worries me for my own family members' mental health and development.  I will be drastically reducing (by about 80%) the amount of HW that my freshmen receive this year, increasing my planning of the meaningful activities and exploration that class time will be used for, and hoping that I can inspire them to CHOOSE to pursue further learning and inquiry on their own...you know...like we do in real life as adults.
   If you haven't read the book yet...please do.  You will be a better teacher/administrator for it.

Rubrics: Training Wheels?

This morning I read a good post from my PLN on twitter (http://goo.gl/UfEgh9) which discussed the way that we use rubrics.  I agree with the author that rubrics can make it "easier" for teachers to assess students' performance on specific standards, but that assessing in itself is not something that necessarily SHOULD be easy.  Evaluating how students are learning, what they are learning, to what degree they are learning, and how they are able to express that understanding---is complicated.

Over the past couple of years, I have also gone to a model of reducing my use of rubrics, and when I do use them, I usually have grades for Mastery, Competent, Novice, and Missing.  I use previous work samples to represent good examples of the levels of understanding, and include descriptions in each cell of the rubric that are specific to what performance objectives, or essential questions that I want discussed or addressed by the students in their work.  I am also much more broad in the descriptors though or each cell, similar to the sample in the attached Post.

I find that rubrics which spell out every detail needed to obtain a score, acts very much like training wheels for students.  Thinking back to the Dimensions of Learning, it often eliminates Dimension 5: Habits of the Mind.  Students become robots trying to make sure they are meeting every single detail on the rubric, often regurgitating information, rather than critically evaluating and then expressing in their own comprehensive and creative way.  There are also times that I have created rubrics that simple have one column: Mastery.  In that column, I  identify that the performance objectives that I would like to see the students address for various aspects of the assignment.  Rather than giving them details of what is considered an "A", a "B", a "C" etc, I simply layout what I would like them to demonstrate.  They are then able to choose how, and in what format they would like to present the information.

I have always found that showing too many models of a project from a previous year, leads students to duplicate it, removing their own creative process from the assignment.  I find that detailed rubrics are usually created by teachers, similarly based on previous students completing the assignment.  The more that complete it, the more detailed that a rubric may get, to address voids. I feel like removing the "training wheels", and cutting the students loose to create and collaborate to demonstrate their understanding, provides a much fresher set of submissions, representative of each student.

Brain Overload #1: Menu of Assignments

I teach two of the Project Lead the Way courses: Principles of Engineering (POE), and Engineering Design and Development (EDD), and have decided to expand the types of assignments that I am making available to my students in the (POE) course this year.  It is definitely still a work in progress and I am sure I will be making adjustments and changes throughout the year(s).  The overall goal though is to give students the opportunity to make more collaborative use of their time, for me to mostly remove myself from the front of the room, and to encourage and facilitate the learning and curiosity and ingenuity of my students.

I have created a MENU list of 6 varying types of assignments, that my students will be able to choose from (completing 4 total projects this way this year).
So far the 6 menu items that I have are:
1) Create a "stand alone presentation" (presentation under 5 minutes that would run on loop without human interface---blending sound, pictures, graphics, and text)

2) Create a presentation to deliver (more traditional presentation with few words on slides, and verbal presentation accompaniment by students

3) Create artistic rendering(s)/cartoon/illustrated story (that illustrates the key skills from the unit)

4) Create a video (complete with script and/or storyboard) and post to my class YouTube channel

5) Create a PhotoGraphic Organizer (photographs taken by students accompanied by concise details of how the picture represents the objectives from the unit

6) Create a model and present it live (or through video).  Include a description from each student of the process of creating the model, parts list, and issues faced and how they overcame them.


The goal is to make these projects for pairs or small groups (not more than 3) of students, to give students a meaningful, in depth exploration and understanding of the material  that we are discussing in each unit.  Each of the MENU items has its own rubric (but nearly all  rubrics are identical, with just some slight modifications specific to each menu choice). Students will still have summative assessments, but each unit grade will be balanced by their process of delivering one of these menu items, and the assessment.

It should be an exciting year, with a lot of new learning for my students AND FOR ME.  Per Josh Stumpenhorst's @stumpteacher, I just completed THE HOMEOWRK MYTH by Alfie Kohn and will be trying to eliminate HW assigned as much as possible, with restructuring of daily lessons and teaching style.  Also with the help of Alice Keeler's @alicekeeler, website: www.alicekeeler.com, I am blending my Blackboard use with Google Apps for Education to further expand the collaboration in my classroom and beyond and to go even more paperless!

Busy Busy...stay tuned for updates on my successes and growing pains.

Starting a Coding Club! Anyone Can Do It!

Interested in teaching/learning JavaScript?  I started a coding club last year, and it had a lot of growing pains (post for a different day). At the end of the school year though, I found a book online called A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript by Mark Myers

Now, believe me when I say that I had searched high and low for a good resources for someone with near no programming background (such as myself).  Mark takes a completely different approach though to get ANYONE going with JavaScript.  Mark reduces the aspects of JavaScript to 84 small chapters of his book.  His methodology is what cinches this as THE BOOK to use if you are learning though.  He teaches JavaScript as a TEACHER would; breaking everything down into smaller parts, chunking information, checking for understanding, and leaving room for exploration and practice of new skills, FREQUENTLY!  Mark's goal is that each of his chapters takes no more than 20-30 minutes total to complete (for some it will take less).  Each chapter is only about 2 - 3 pages of reading excellent easy to understand examples and explanations.  Once you have read the chapter, then you log in to his FREE site that has FREE exercises for each chapter.  The best part, is that you get to repeat these chapters as often as you would like, in order to reteach yourself if you forget.

The exercises themselves, are also terrifically laid out. Each exercise starts with some basic vocabulary, then progresses to the user typing code, with the computer auto filling as you get it correct.  the next few exercises has an  auto-correct, so if you type incorrectly it will delete what you type.  Further progression moves you through small lines of code, then timed, small lines of code, and then two exercises that are full application of the new skill.  In all, there are 20 very fast and small skill checks at the end of each chapter.  If you get any wrong, you can see the correct answer, and will be asked to come back to it before you can complete the chapter.

I will admit that I am not done with the book yet myself to know where I will be in experience when finished, but I have shown this to a couple of my juniors from last school year who were in the coding club, and they LOVED IT!  They each bought there own kindle versions, and started immediately. I have already bought 30 copies of the book for next year's club (@$17 a piece) and can't wait to get the students going with it.  It is a really easy way to run the club, with the time broken down.  Come in, work through two chapters at a computer with a book, and collaborate with your peers if you need help.  Should take about 40 minutes per student and we will do that twice per week.  For those that cannot come twice per week, they will be encouraged to complete 4 exercises total per week.  that should get us completely done in March (assuming it will get a little more complicated and may slow down a bit).  That will leave the students with two more months to explore resources on their own...before we move on to Mark's soon to come out book A SMARTER WAY TO LEARN ANGULAR JS.

Btw: Mark Myers also has A Smarter Way To Learn HTML and CSS, which I have not read, but assume that it is the same great format!  I am not paid by Mark nor do I receive any kickback of any sort!  This is all about the kids, and encouraging them through action, that they can learn some powerful skills, and apply them to their interests moving forward!

Technology Student Association Finals 2015!

While I was at ISTE2015, one of my coworkers, and the Maryland Technology Student Association  (TSA) adviser Geoff Bernstein was in Dallas Texas for the National Finals. TSA is a fantastic opportunity for students of ALL backgrounds to explore technology in a variety of ways, and compete locally in their own state in the Spring, and hopefully qualify for the national conference.  TSA offers a variety of events for Middle School and high School students ranging from architectural design, fashion design, bridge building, vex robotics competition, technology debate, technology essay, video editing, game design, app design, CO2 car racers, Solar racers, to just name a few!  Many of the competitions that they offer, require very little $ towards equipment and can be a great avenue for many students that otherwise do not participate in after school programs, to gain friendships, self confidence, and greater focus!  As one of our students said to us at his first competition "These are my people!". What a great thing to be able to offer to students, the feeling of competition and camaraderie.


TSA National Conference 2015 Promo from Technology Student Association on Vimeo.

Blogger cafe

It's official I guess, that I officially have "joined" the membership of educators who share their thoughts, challenges, achievements, and innovations- with others.  ISTE2015 has been a tremendous opportunity for me to learn and share with some of the most creative, and dedicated educators in the world.  Thank you to everyone that I have met this week, and to those I have not met formally, I hope to in the future!

Here's a shot from the BLOGGER CAFE (look for the smoke coming off of their brains)