So many online resources

I have been surfing around the web during my extended illness and I have found no shortage of very cool internet sites that offer interesting services to teachers and students alike:

delicious: online bookmarking
glogster: interactive poster creation
animoto: slideshows (and you can apply for an education membership)
edmodo: kind of like facebook for the classroom
twitter: a great way to update others about classroom news or to receive great tips about education

I am curious to know if it's possible to use facebook for education without the friend thing happening. I don't want to be able to see student profiles, but since most of them are on facebook anyway, perhaps it could be used just to remind them about homework? Few seem to have a definitive answer for this question.

Web-based resources

The Elevation podcast produced by Ryan Ewaskiw and other TVDSB employees has provided so many awesome resources. Check out Bitstrips for schools and xtranormal.com for some very cool options for student projects.

On another note, great to work with Barrie again, this time with a focus on action research. The only problem is that every time I attend a meeting with him, he reminds me how bloody complex our job is. So many things to remember and think about!

Academic Controversy crashes and burns (sort of)

I tried Academic Controversy with my three grade 10 classes over the past couple of days, with mixed results. I first showed them the process using a couple of hot-button topics like school uniforms and banning cell phones if you are under 20 years of age. The students did well with these topics and things went relatively smoothly, though it always surprises me how little some people can come up with when given the opportunity to discuss things that actually have meaning to them. I guess I can't assume everyone actually likes to talk about things; many are very happy copying things and taking everything at face value.

Next I had them debate Mackenzie King's decision to turn away the SS St. Louis that was carrying 900 Jewish refugees in 1939. Our community is NOT a multi-cultural one, and I couldn't get over the complete lack of emotion that went along with the "debate"...I put it in quotations because there really wasn't one.

One thing that students seemed to dislike about Academic Controversy was the amount of restrictions that were placed on them. It seemed like there was no momentum with the arguments and students just read them like an accepted list of facts. When they actually had time to participate in open discussion, few had anything to say. I guess that I had set my expectations too high when I thought that students would bring some emotion to the debate. There was such apathy!

Please let me know if you have used Academic Controversy in your classes, and if so, how it went. Can it be modified and/or improved? I don't want to give up on this supposedly "powerful" strategy just yet.

Using crostics to assess understanding

I think I might have posted about this strategy in the past, but I just used it with my classes recently and was reminded of how effective it can be. Choose a topic from your curriculum (I used the word "Hitler")and, after students have studied content, have them work in pairs to identify words or phrases for each letter in the word that have direct connections to the word. Here is an example created by one of my Grade 10 pairs:

H= hatred for Jewish people
I= I will put Germans back to work
T= terrorized people (or took away rights)
L= led Germany into war again
E= everyone seemed to believe him
R= revenge motivated him (referring to Treaty of Versailles)

I first read about this strategy in one of Paul Vermette's books. It can easily be inserted into a lesson to check for understanding. Cheers.

Not sure how to title this one...

March Break is underway and none too soon! The students were antsy, and I think the staff might have been a bit too (wink wink). A veteran teacher once told me that once the dandelions start growing, students stop thinking and working. I have seen evidence of truth in this statement, so I am going to try extra hard to slow that process. There aren't any dandelions yet, but I can already see some students falling off the tracks. Our Student Success Teacher has done a great job of setting up a safety net of sorts to help kids turn in work when they are really struggling in one or more courses. Our school's use of in-school suspensions has yielded far more positive results than the 3-day out-of-school holiday that many students actually strive for.

On a personal note, students in all of my classes have adapted well to working in cooperative teams. I returned to rows for a few days because independent projects were being done; I could actually see the relief in a few students' faces when they saw that teams were not in effect on those days. That fact is, there are some students who love working in groups, and there are some who don't. While I know that collaboration is an important skill to develop, I also know that independent work is something that many students struggle with. I will continue to change things up depending on the lesson. Besides, even when rows exist, Think Pair Share and appointment schedules work really well for quick small group discussion.

The last thing to note that I am happy about is the new course culminating activity we are piloting for our grade 10 academic history students this semester. It is based on the National History Day contest in the states, and it is highly differentiated. I will report on our challenges and triumphs with this task as the semester goes on. Until next time.