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For the "Lesson" portion of the 2-hour synchronous/synchronous blocks of time shared on Day -8. I will be creating screencast recordings of me annotating over PDF templates that that my students will be been given hard copies of (emailed to parents and printed).
I have a MacBook Air, and not an iPad, thus creation of these recorded lessons is a bit tricky on a Mac. Turns out drawing over a PDF in a seamless way is not that easy. I am brushing off my old #flipclass skills and below is the technology I will be using along with a video example:
Engage Hero is Called
Explore Hero is Challenged
Explain Hero is Mentored
Extend Hero is Transformed
Evaluate Hero is Judged
All lessons based on the 5E Learning Cycle/Hero's Journey overlap shown below:
In my never-ending quest to simplify my instructional process, I created this template for my students to record their activity (laboratory) investigations for next semester. Make a copy for yourself! Below is a GIF of the template in action.
Lately I have been obsessed with simplifying my curriculum. That is, drastically decreasing the Extraneous Cognitive load of all materials, technology, etc.
Perhaps I'm just maturing as an educator? Perhaps I'm just EXHAUSTED by all the options out there. Or perhaps I'm just developing a much deeper love for the content I'm teaching rather than the tools used to teach it? I'm sure it's a combination of all things. Either way, I find it fascinating, and somewhat paradoxal, how attempting to deeply simplify the tools I and my students are using poses as a greater instructional design challenge than leveraging a system of complex tools. Either way, this coming semester (classes at my school are a semester long) I am going to be transitioning all of my class websites from traditional Google Sites to simple Google Documents. I use our class website to not only curate resources, but also deliver all instructions (link documents, practice problems, activity templates, etc.). In transitioning to a Google Doc based system I plan on having one document, that is broken into individual learning cycles where students will access all class materials. I will use one hyperlinked bookmark to identify where we are in the document for that particular day so students feel a sense of flow and organization to the document. Students will click on the link at the top of the page and be shuttled immediately to the portion of the document for that day. Click here for an example of an old website using Google Sites, and here for an example of the beginning (2 of 6 units have been completed) of my new system. I will also be including a "Teacher's Corner" (under construction...apologies) link at the top that will outline how each unit is designed according to the 5E/Hero's Journey learning cycle format. I do not explicitly indicate the curricular jargon to students, rather I want them to experience the journey authentically. However, I want you, and other fellow educators, to be able to access my thinking. Not sure if this post makes any sense, but I am SUPER excited about the challenge in simplifying my curricular materials for both learning and instruction. I will be updating this process as I progress over the next few months under the "Projects" tab. About three months ago I did something I often do but I am embarrassed to admit: I assigned a "sub lesson" when absent, asked students to submit evidence of completion, and then... ...wait for it... DIDN'T EVER LOOK at the document! Yes, I suppose it's a combination of my confidence in the accountability created by having students submit images via a collaborative google doc, and the pure hecticness during the school year. More of the later. Anyhow, here I am, sitting at some random cafe enjoying my summer and cleaning up my Google Drive, and I stumbled upon a Google Doc that contained a sub assignment I had asked my students to do when learning about balancing ionic compounds. I have been striving to incorporate more inquiry into my sub assignments, and this was my first stab at it. A little bit about the lesson: My 4-year-old twin boys were gifted a set of HUGE, generic legos, and I had a thought! See image below: While my kids quickly realized that they were not "real" Legos and went on to doing whatever 4-year-old twin boys do, I saw a potential sub lesson!
In my chemistry class we had just got done learning about the Periodic Table of Elements and how positive and negative ions form. I had yet to introduce the idea of ions transferring electrons to form balanced ionic compounds. Hence, the entry point for inquiry! I was to be gone the next day of class, and I decided to cut all the legos into blocks of 1, 2, or 3, bumps (not sure what the correct term is?), that, in my mind, represented the +1/-1, +2/-2, and +3/-3 ions. It is a common activity to have students form ionic compounds by fitting them together correctly. But, my students did not know this. Hence, the entry point for inquiry! After placing all the pieces in the center of the room, I emailed my sub the following prompt: Ask students to model the formation of Ionic Compounds using this document. Ask them to insert images of their models into the document. To be honest, I had know idea what they would produce, as the prompt was very open-ended in general, let alone for a sub assignment. Back to the point of this post. When I looked at their responses...today...I was blown away. They completely nailed the activity. Shame on me for not even following up with them the next day in class...It is so easy to lose track of the most important things as a teacher at times.. Embarrassing, but true. Below is screenshot from the shared google doc where they uploaded their responses: |
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