Friday, June 27, 2014

Gamification with ClassDojo

On the last day of school I gamified my class using ClassDojo. 

It was the last day of the year and I was defeated. I had just received word that my math scores were not very good on the end of year state tests (I know test scores aren't everything). Don't get me wrong, I can teach math, but I must have been doing something wrong. The worst part was there was one day of school left and nothing I could do about it ... right? 

Wrong! I did a Twitter chat that night and it was all about gamification. So I collected some resources, read some blogs, and had a pretty good idea about gamification. It was all about a state of mind and was something I had passion for. So I rewrote my last day lesson plans.

I decided to create a list of ten geometric challenges involving some math concepts we struggled with this year.

The next morning, just before launching the lesson, I realized that I could add even more to this using weighted points in ClassDojo. I created a system where all group members received points for completing challenges in addition to the stickers. The Dojo points really made this lesson work. Students really enjoyed seeing their point totals rise for each challenge. 

I grouped my students heterogeniusly and set some rules. Each person much solve every other challenge or rotate if you had a group of three. They then brought me completed challenges and I gave them a sticker and Dojo points or feedback on why it didn't meat the challenge. For example several students brought me a square for a quadrilateral that isn't a rectangle. 

The next thing I knew I was standing at my computer awarding Dojo points, giving feedback, and stickers. Students were engaged, communicating, collaborating, and solving math problems. I also set a timer every five minutes when I would stop and teach a quick lesson on each challenge. By the time I got through all ten lessons most everyone was done, but it helped reinforce the concepts I wanted to practice.

Did I mention this was all on the last day of school when everyone else was having parties and watching movies? We were working hard, having fun, failing, and getting better at math. 

I finished my year strong, proved, I could teach kids math (every group finished the challenge), and the students had a great time. 

This lesson was really something I can build off of going into next year and adding more gamification type elements to my classroom. 

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Connected, Passionate, Reflective: How Twitter changed my life

So I changed the title of my blog and the URL.  This is why ...

In January 2014 I finished reading Drive by Daniel Pink and was thinking of how to apply this in my classroom, but also in my teaching.  I realized that I had the autonomy I needed to be successful and enjoy my career, but I wasn't sure how to do it.  I chose to apply for the LearnZillion Dream Team because I was teaching using flipped videos.  Plus I really liked LearnZillion.  I completed both parts of the application, followed the rubrics to the best of my ability, and had submitted an awesome application. I just had to wait until early April to hear back about my acceptance and then go down to New Orleans June 6-8.  My career was about to take off, I was actually going to accomplish something worthwhile that people would notice, and it would make a big impact on education.

Meanwhile, my wife and I were searching for jobs to leave North Carolina.  This was for a variety of reasons beyond just the pay and treatment, but that isn't a topic I plan on covering in this post.  Our search was focused in on several counties in Maryland.

Then April came and we had spring break that we spent the first several days in Baltimore exploring the area and attending a job fair.  It was great, I took my son to his first baseball game.  Although I still hope he becomes a Met's fan.  I also am sure some people would debate calling a game with a DH baseball.  Again, a topic for another post.  I did get to play with my new iPad Air (see the picture) which helped me become connected. 

We returned home from Baltimore and that Friday night I received the rejection email from LearnZillion.  How in the world did I not get accepted? I tried to ask them, but I guess when you have thousands of applicants and only take 200 it is hard to provide feedback to everyone.  I moved on by trying to find my own feedback.  I finally went to Twitter.  I had an account, had heard about the Twitter chats for education, and had even followed a bunch of educators.  I just never really tweeted, or looked beyond the few people I had followed.  I honestly didn't think I knew enough, had proven myself, or was capable of putting myself out there.  Especially after the huge rejection I just received.  This time I wanted to see and figured it couldn't be any worse.  Maybe I was an awful teacher and just didn't know it.

That weekend I got on Twitter (my new iPad really helped to encourage this) and started looking for education chats to just read and see how I could hold up.  I found a list and later a calendar that I enjoy too.  I also found Sean Junkins who was moderating several chats that weekend.  That is where I got started.  I planned to just lurk, but found I actually had ideas to contribute.  People agreed with and challenged my thinking, but it was positive and fun.  I even realized that weekend that I was not asking good questions in my classroom.  I started to connect and reflect to become better.

As I found more educators on Twitter, I came back to some ideas I had to start the school year involving Augmented Reality.  I wanted to use it in my room, but we had these computers that were older than the kids.  At least we were 1:1 and had devices at all.  What I realized though was that close to half of my kids had their own devices at home they could use.  Although our school network wasn't the best I decided to go forward with using Augmented Reality.  Thanks largely impart to the passion and no excuses attitude from the Two Guys Brad Waid and Drew Minock.

This is what changed it all.  My confidence grew, my passion grew, I became more and more connected on Twitter.  I realized this is why I became a teacher.  All of the other nonsense became easier to deal with. I found ways to get it all done and still have time to focus on my passion of meaningful technology integration in the classroom.

The big change started on a Friday night in May.  I was going through my Twitter feed, after my son had gone to bed (7:00 bed time is wonderful), and I saw a blog post by Todd Nesloney about #YouMatter day.  I thought it was neat and a really easy idea.  I had heard about it on Twitter some, but am just not a very sentimental person and probably don't tell people that they matter enough.  You can read most of this story on my #YouMatter day post.

I left out part of that story because when I wrote it I was going through a lot and wanted to keep most of it private so my wife and I could work through this process.  The day after we had planned to have our own #YouMatter day I decided I should put my name in the hat for a position at Navasota Intermediate school where Todd was going to become principal next year.  We were already looking to relocate and applying for jobs like crazy, so what was one more?  The location wasn't ideal, but honestly, if LearnZillion wouldn't take me why would Todd Nesloney?  I applied on Saturday and quickly was offered a position at the school.  Unfortunately, I wasn't sure if this was best for my wife and son.  It would be crazy to just up and move to Texas for a teaching job.  I mean I can teach anywhere, right? Even if I decided this was best for us, what if my wife couldn't get a job?

Then I realized this was more than a teaching job, this was a chance to connect, to reflect, and to join up with like minded passionate educators.  Todd was probably one of my first follows in Twitter way back when I was looking for ideas on flipping my classroom.  Not to mention that Drew Minock and Brad Waid practically worship him and talk about how great he is in every episode of their pod cast.

It was the weekend of the LearnZillion Dream Team and I was about to get on a plane.  Not to go to New Orleans, but this time to go out to Navasota, TX.  I had downloaded Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess and was ready to travel. I actually finished this book in my trip and it made me finally realize what I was missing when I applied to LearnZillion and what I now had that made me a much better teacher.  I now had passion.  I was already reflective, I was becoming connected, and now I realized I was passionate about what I was doing.  These three are why I have renamed my blog.

After the trip I was sold.  There was nothing, not even 1:1 iPads or some other device, that would fit me better than working at Navasota Intermediate. Unfortunately, we were close to the deadline.  What was I going to do?  How awkward would ISTE be if I had to tell Todd no after making him wait all this time?  I couldn't do anything but plan for the worst and hope for the best.  I was applying for jobs in Maryland and interviewing still as a backup, but knew where I needed to be.  It was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. Fortunately, in a crazy and exiting way that I couldn't possibly have imagined it worked out and my wife was offered a job.  I let Todd know, and now we are headed to Texas.  

Here is what I learned about not just teaching, but life from this journey.  Be connected, be passionate, and be reflective.  If you do those things you will always be successful.  This is my first "rebranding" and I'll probably have a few more over the years as my ideas develop.  I am really looking forward to the journey the next few years hold.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Dream Bedroom ... More like Nightmare Bedroom

Okay, so it wasn't that bad, but I thought the title sounded funny. This lesson was a failure of mine, and sometimes we don't share our failures.  Although, it wasn't a total failure. My students had fun, and some of them improved and impressed me with their math skills and creativity. Most of them had no clue it was a disaster either.



I recently stole an idea from Lynn Lape (@lmlape) involving having students create a dream bedroom where they use grid paper to calculate the area and perimeter of the bedroom and everything in it. I started out telling kids they would be designing their own dream bedroom with the shoe boxes I had been asking them to bring in for a few weeks. We actually didn't have enough so I had to cut the kids off so I could double the number of bedrooms I had. I let he kids pick their boxes and we were off!

So anyway I went through and modeled how to set up grid paper to match the area of your box and then calculate area and perimeter. So far so good, I was able to facilitate and get kids through it. It was actually going well. The kids were calculating area and perimeter of huge rectangles and now just had to add in the other parts.  

What I left out, and where I think my first misstep was, was part of the timing and order. After I went over the first part, I created a rubric with the students outlining what should be included and how they should be evaluated. It actually went well and we came up with some good guidelines for items to include.  Although, I think next time we will look closer at the idea of the door taking up area in the bedroom along with how big the things should be in comparison to each other. 

So yes, the first lesson/day should have just been building the plan/grid and finding area and perimeter.  What happened when I started suggesting what would go in the room is that kids just went to that step. They skipped the math content I was trying to reteach entirely. I spent the rest of this unit or lesson or whatever trying to recover. My students needed more direction early on than I had predicted. 

So, back to the lesson. The next day I modeled how to find area and perimeter of the big rectangle again and how to put things on our plans. The mistake I made this day was letting students have the boxes back. Again they skipped the planning stage and just started building. Why didn't I think of that?  I do the same thing and just plan as I go but never write it down. When I arrange furniture I just move it around the room until my wife likes it. This lesson was becoming a disaster. Trying to redirect them back from the "fun" part to draw rectangles on grid paper was near impossible.  

I think I should have had them use their plans and grids and then get approval from me. Once a few got approval I could hire them as inspectors to approve others and speed up the process. This way my early finishers are engaged and teaching the students that need help and I essentially clone the teacher while empowering my students. Also, if I sold it as an incentive to get your plan done it would have been an engaging option vs some other busy work while they wait for me to help everyone. Who wants to solve math problems when you have a bedroom ready to be designed? Then, the next day I could pass the boxes back out and students could work on transferring their plans to their houses in the same way. Early finishers can again become inspectors to check that students plans match their bedrooms. 

The final flaw in my lesson was hinted to above. Students weren't building their bedrooms in accordance to the plans they made. The sizes didn't line up and they wanted to add in a lot of extras based on trying to use some extra supplies I had left over from creating ornaments for Christmas. There were a lot of jingle bell room alarms to keep pesky siblings out. 

To make this better I think I should have just left it up to my students to bring in materials like many of them did, or build from paper/drawings. Even showing them the supplies when we talked about making our plans. This way as they plan on the grid paper they are thinking about what supplies they need. 

Now after three days of math instruction students had only improved their knowledge of area and perimeter a little but I had an idea on how to fix it. At the end of fourth day I saw the rooms and plans were a disaster. One student even lost the entire plan, but boy was he having fun.  He even came back at lunch one day to work on his bedroom. Anyway, I wanted to see if the idea of inspector would work.  I had students set up their bedrooms and plans on their desks. Then they went around trying to find mistakes on other people's plans. They were generally engaged (if they knew how to find area and perimeter) and proud to show off when they found a mistake. They also were being bribed with a "wow" Dojo point for being able to explain to me the mistake. That part was awesome and I would include it at the end next time. 

So if you are still reading I hope it helps you. 

Please leave any questions, comments, or suggestions for me.  I am also thinking maybe this could be  outside with meter sticks and sidewalk chalk in groups instead.