Instructional Balancing Act

October is upon us, and as my students finish their first unit, I am super excited about the progress made over the past month and a half. My 1:1 journey has just started, but I must admit that my classroom has completely transformed from previous years, and I have learned so much about engagement, collaboration, and instruction. 

One of the biggest obstacles has been figuring out how to balance my classroom lessons in order to meet all of my students needs AND make sure I cover the skills I must teach and assess per our curriculum. Direct instruction and student centered learning must both be utilized in the classroom, and it has become essential for me to really dig into my learning targets and decide how I want to devote my precious class time. In addition, with my goal to not assign any homework besides reading, I need all 47 minutes for instruction, student work, and formative assessment. 

One small change to my classroom instruction has helped me bridge the gap between direct instruction and student centered learning in order to make both of them work in my classroom at the same time. 

In the past, my students have followed my lesson by viewing my Google Slides presentation and taking notes/completing activities in their notebooks. Now that we have Chromebooks, I have been sharing my class lessons and presentations with the students in Google Classroom, and it is really transforming my lessons to make them more student centered and engaging. After finishing my lesson, I add it to Google Classroom (I added a "topic" called Classroom Lessons and Resources) and I make a copy for each student. From there, as we complete the lesson, they can take notes in their slides, complete activities that I put in the presentation, and then work with others around them as I direct them to do so in class. I can also add links to external sites, other lessons, and various activities within the presentation, making it a pretty powerful HyperDoc.

Example - The Catcher in the Rye Chapter 1-4 Overview 
This example includes my class lesson with embedded Google Forms and a final collaborative activity in Padlet. The class period flew by, and the students were engaged and learning - per their work in Padlet and the exit slip. 

I have found it is extremely important to work collaborative time into these lessons. In addition, I must have students lower their screens at times to just listen or direct their attention to the front of the room. Shifts in classroom management have helped with this process. The students seem to take more notes and add their own thoughts throughout the lesson to their slides - more so than they used to do in their notebooks. They tell me it is easier to listen, focus, and talk with their classmates with the information right in front of them.

My classroom balancing act continues each day, but this small instructional change provides significant improvements to my classroom environment. In just 47 short minutes, I am able to provide direct instruction as needed, but it is student centered and offers opportunities for critical thinking, curiosity, and collaboration. 

#whatsup  

Figuring Out the Hype with Hyperdocs

Hello world. It has been a while, but we are back in action in the classroom, and I am excited to share our journey this school year. I am currently piloting 1:1 in my classroom, and it has been an interesting start to the year as I navigate through this new classroom environment. 

Last year, I made it a priority to create a more learner centered environment in my classroom. Students were asked to take ownership of their own learning as I started to incorporate more choice, project based learning, and future ready tasks. I am a big believer in the 4C's - Collaboration, Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Communication - and with the addition of Curiosity, I challenged my students to take risks and choose their own paths when it came to some of the lessons, writing assignments, and projects we completed. By the end of the year, I was thrilled with what my students accomplished and the enthusiasm they displayed during class. 

This year, with students each equipped with a Chromebook, I craved an even more student centered environment, and my first goal was to start incorporating more HyperDocs in the classroom. A HyperDoc is a document created, using GAFE, that includes tasks and links to external resources in order to foster learning in the classroom. I read a fantastic book this summer that helped guide me in the process of planning and creating my first few HyperDocs: The HyperDoc Handbook. After creating and utilizing two HyperDocs in my English II classroom, I am amazed at how much I have learned about what needs to change in order to continue towards my goal of a student centered classroom that highlights the 4C's.

HyperDoc...Round 1
We always start the year with our sophomore students writing a narrative essay. I decided to revamp the assignment and created my first HyperDoc in order to provide students choice and ownership right away.

My first HyperDoc: Your Snapchat Story Narrative Assignment

After creating and using this first HyperDoc assignment, I figured out a few things that I didn't like and wanted to improve. With the Narrative HyperDoc lesson, I found the classroom environment quite boring because the students were just working silently, on their own. With this, I wanted to add a collaborative element to get the students up, moving, and talking with their classmates. I improvised in class and asked them to get up and talk to their peers periodically through the period. This was an effective quick fix, but again, I realized very quickly that I would have to add in some active collaborative activities into the HyperDoc if I wanted to liven up the classroom. 


HyperDoc...Round 2
We are starting The Catcher in the Rye next week, and in order to get them interested in the book and the controversy around it, I created a HyperDoc and Collaborative Web quest for them to complete. One of my colleagues has a web quest she created that I used as a starting point, and then I added some extra elements to incorporate research, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration. I hoped it would help foster an engaging learning environment where students can take ownership of their learning. After day 1, I realized that although collaborative elements are incorporated, I still need to encourage them to actually engage in this part of the process. In addition, various students are rushing through the HyperDoc and not actually reading/viewing the resources provided. The process is better....but still needs work. 

My second HyperDoc: Intro to Catcher - Exploration 

What's next, you ask? 

After reflecting and collaborating with my #BFF and coworker, Steve Wick, I plan to incorporate some formative assessments into the next HyperDoc or student centered lesson I create. I hope to try Recap to get verbal feedback from my students and/or some competitive digital formative assessment tools during the process or at the end of the lesson. 

I love that I am learning so much as I go through this process, and I look forward to future successes and challenges as I work towards my goal of a student centered and engaging classroom environment!

#whatsup 

Awesome Google Updates - Classroom and Slides

Google Classroom Update

Great news....Google Classroom released a new feature last week in order to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week and give thanks to teachers all over the world. You will be happy to read that this update will enhance the use of Google Classroom with our students. You can now schedule all posts (announcements, assignments, and questions) in Google Classroom for a later date and/or specific time. This feature will provide a great opportunity for teachers who like to plan ahead and get organized for the week, month, unit, year, etc.

Coming Soon...

It is finally happening!!!! Next fall, Classroom will offer parent/guardian notifications in order to keep them in the loop with what is happening in your class.

Click here to learn more about the wonderful Google Classroom updates!

Google Slides Update - Q&A

Google just released a Q&A feature to use with Google Slides to give the viewers an opportunity to ask questions as they view a presentation. Slides Q&A is a back channel and provides a way to interact with audience members.

Click here to read more about these updates.

Wilson's #whatsup Tutorial 

YouTube Video

Classroom Fun - PBL Updates

Student: "Mrs. Wilson...can I conduct a social experiment in order to see what really makes people happy?"

Me: "Absolutely"

Student: "Really? Ok, good. I love this assignment."

Me: Smiling from ear to ear and thinking....that's #whatsup

We are about three weeks into our PBL project in my English II class, and it has been an interesting learning experience for me as a teacher to step back and let my students take ownership of their own learning. Due to other curriculum items and our reading of my favorite novel, The Great Gatsby, our PBL activity is something we do on a weekly basis. Every Monday, the students get the entire period in order to research, analyze, reflect, interview, and inquire what it means to be truly happy and how one can attain this happiness. As we near the end of the unit and school year, the students will take the information they collected and created from their Google + Collection and synthesize it in order to create an infographic that answers our driving questions. Although the first few weeks were slow, I am finally starting to witness my students taking ownership of their work and direction when it comes to this assignment.

One Student's Interview Questions

One great piece of evidence....my students's question listed above. In addition, students are writing questions and interviewing friends and family. Some students went to the lunchroom during class and interviewed over 10 students for their projects. Students then asked to create a video montage of responses in order to add to their Google + Collection. One student came in with a copious notes on her phone that she was typing into her Collection. When I asked what she was typing, she told me she talked to a bunch of different people over the past week in order to get their perspectives. True inquiry, creativity, and ownership. Wow...my students make me excited about the process and potential that come with a PBL activity.

On the other hand, some students do struggle with an open ended project. They want clear instructions. They want set guidelines. They are worried about points and how they can "lose" points if they don't do something a certain way. When they ask me a question and it is not answered directly, they struggle to comprehend that they are in the driver's seat when it comes to their work with this assignment. This makes me sad, as it appears the students feel the only way they can think is if they comply with my expectations. While I think it is important to set some ground rules/expectations, I do believe that students should be allowed to be curious, ask their own questions, and use their interests in order to drive research. Yes, this can be time consuming and hard to fit into a jam packed curriculum, but don't we want our students to be critical thinkers? Curious? Creative? Collaborative? Problem solvers?

All of these skills are expectations in our curriculums and, more importantly, in the real world. I am seeing more and more that they need opportunities in the classroom environment to take ownership of their thinking and learning. And they need us to facilitate, motivate, and challenge their thinking.

I love my job! #whatsup

Here is my PBL Assignment sheet. If you are interested in seeing some of my students' work, please let me know. I will ask their permission to share their Google + Collections and final infographics.

My Trip to Google

Last week, I had the opportunity to go to Google Chicago to be a part of a Google Educator Group (GEG) leadership planning event. It was a wonderful day of learning, collaboration, and developing my PLN. In addition, I totally geeked out because it was my first trip to one of the Google offices. I am pretty sure that everyone knew I was excited as I continued to take selfie after selfie as I entered the building and walked throughout the illustrious working spaces. 78 pictures to be exact. #geek


Everything I imagined about the space at Google was pretty spot on. It is obvious that they practice what they preach when it comes to collaboration, creativity, and student-centered learning spaces. The space itself provided collaborative, comfortable places for the staff in multiple areas on every single floor. It was refreshing to see a variety of people working in different chairs, couches, standing desks, cubicles, and meeting rooms as I toured the building. In addition, interesting and unique art decorated the walls of Google Chicago and highlighted the beautiful city that we call home.  It would be impossible for anyone to forget where they are with the amount of Google logos around the building, but each one was decorated a bit different in order to draw your attention to take a closer look. In addition, the outer walls of Google are all glass, so the city of Chicago was on display at every turn.  While Google's employees were all hard at work, it was obvious that they felt at home in all areas of the building. I felt at home on our floor during the planning event and inspired by the vibrant space, platforms for creativity, and passion from the other GEG educators. 

The day itself flew by as the GEG worked together in order to plan events for other educators in the Chicagoland area. Although the meeting itself focused on leadership for instructional technology use, our best work came from collaboration with one another, sticky notes, revision, combination of ideas, and the excitement of members. Like myself, the teachers and tech coaches present at this meeting were more than excited due to the location of our meeting. Along with the enthusiasm about Google Chicago, my colleagues were genuinely thrilled to be joining forces to help other teachers, tech coaches, and administrators produce a student centered learning environment. The conversation never focused on the technology tools; instead, the dialogue focused on pedagogy and the most important part of education: the students. 



I left Google Chicago proud of the work we accomplished and excited about the upcoming events that were planned during our meeting to enhance and transform the classroom. More importantly, I felt thankful to be a teacher and to have the opportunity to meet other teachers who share the same passion for the profession. As I always say, it is amazing to see what happens when you get a group of passionate educators in a room to talk about teaching and learning...especially if that room is at Google! #whatsup 

Spring Break Shenanigans

One of the many perks of being a teacher is our wonderful, well deserved spring break. This year, my spring break is quite different than years past. It used to be all about me: sports, coaching, shopping, vacation, hanging out with friends, reading, and relaxing. The real deal. 

This year, spring break, just like my life, revolves around my one-year old son, Tyler. I am only half way through the week, and wow....words cannot express how thankful I am for the time I have with him and the love that continues to grow day by day. His innocence, passion, curiosity, and knowledge continue to amaze me, and I can truly say that I am enjoying every second of spring break: Every smile, cry, word, step, book, giggle, tantrum, and adventure we have together. It is also the real deal. 

My son's curiosity has been especially entertaining to watch, as he is always observing and learning from everything around him. While he can be instantly distracted from what he is doing, his innocence allows him to be genuinely curious about everything he sees, and in turn, he sincerely appreciates all of life's moments and is proud of himself when he completes a task independently. 

I find myself acting a little sillier, taking more chances, and enjoying more moments, as I am inspired by his energy and curiosity. I beam with pride as I watch him grow before my eyes and cannot imagine my life, or future spring breaks, without him. Being a mom is totally the real deal. 

#whatsup 

Ideas and Taking Action

My mind has been spinning with great ideas of how to improve my classroom. I am blessed with opportunities to attend conferences and collaborate with other talented, passionate educators, and these opportunities motivate me to take new steps in making my classroom student-centered. I recently joined a cohort for a Future Ready Teacher Leader Certificate through the EdTech Team. My excitement continues to grow each day as I continue to connect with more educators and learn from their experiences while also sharing my own. My mind continues to race with new ideas for my classroom, and I know it is up to me in order to take action and risks in the future. 

My first big step this year was revising my research project and turning it into an Inquiry project. While it took time, I am extremely happy with the process and my students' work. Will I do things differently next year? Yes...of course, but this will only make it more successful. The risk in changing the project was invigorating, and it provided an opportunity for my students to think creatively, analytically, and critically. They took ownership of their own research and writing, and this ownership was powerful to observe and facilitate. 

My next step is creating a Project Based Learning activity for our fourth and final unit. The unit focuses on aspirations and what it takes to pursue happiness. In addition, our anchor text is my all time favorite novel, The Great Gatsby. At this point, I am in the planning stages but look forward to creating a learning opportunity for my students in which they contemplate what it takes to attain happiness. The project will take place while we are reading, and each week I hope to give the students a day to research and share using some sort of digital platform. Google Collections is high on my list for a digital platform, as I have just started using it professional and personally in order to organize my ideas and share my learning. Potentially, students can research, question, reflect, create, and then post writing, links, images, questions, and videos in their collections. From there, they can share their reflections in our class Community, which will speak to a larger audience and provide an opportunity to learn and communicate with each another. I may also challenge my students to share their collections on Twitter or through another digital platform in order to expand their audience outside of our classroom. Obviously, the opportunities for learning are endless. 

Ideas will continue to come in...but it is my job to take action. Stay tuned as I continue to brainstorm, create, learn, reflect, and share throughout this process. #whatsup