Ashley Blackwelder Blog Post 4: Genius Hour

I have really enjoyed, and continue to enjoy, my experience with the Genius Hour project. I have been working with a 3rd grade class, and it has been challenging, eye-opening, and a great reminder of ALL that goes into managing an entire class of extremely diverse learners. While I have become pretty comfortable with the idea of "organized chaos" in my own classroom, I know that this idea of learning about WHATEVER you want is very foreign to most of our teachers as well as students. We have grown by leaps and bounds in terms of student choice and authentic inquiry, but many of our students are still overwhelmed by the idea of having complete control over their learning, despite the fact that they are excited about having that kind of freedom and time. In order to let them know that this was actually expected to be a productive time--and to provide some guidance to the students who were completely stuck on an idea--I started them off with a Symbaloo of websites that are great for questioning or related to specific topics and gadgets that I knew they would want to explore. Once they had chosen a topic, I gave them a proposal form and Design Process handout that they would use to plan their projects. It's been fun to see them explore their interests, and also a great reality check for me, as I am reminded that 3rd graders are needy and not necessarily comfortable with taking risks on a project like this. It's been very difficult to conference with an individual or small group without having the rest of the class start to cluster around me as they wait for help. I've spent a lot of time saying, "Just give it a try...I promise it's going to be OK!"
My goal is to have them ready to present some works in progress the week before Christmas Break, and allow them to share their (likely unfinished) product, as well as information on what they have learned and where they want to go next in their investigation. I've provided one checklist for the classroom teacher so far, so she can see how to get valid grades from all this work time (and also to hopefully help her see that her kids are actually getting something out of this). It has taken longer than I had hoped, but with only 45 min. a week, with a class that doesn't know me as THEIR teacher, and a lot of insecurity that they are trying to overcome...progress has been slow. But I think they're going to have some things to be really proud of--and hopefully some things that they are inspired to continue learning about--once we present to our audience.
I'm attaching all of the handouts we've used so far, in case they can be helpful to anyone:
Symbaloo Link
Design Process
Project Planning
Planning Checklist:

Name ____________________

Genius Hour Checklist: Planning and Research

I have written WHAT I want to learn about on my proposal form.
I have explained WHY I am interested in this topic.
I have written an idea for how to share my learning on my proposal form.
I have clearly DEFINED my challenge.
I have written clear and relevant research questions to guide my learning.
I have written my resources on the frame of my circle map.
I have written my topic and important information/ideas in the appropriate places on my circle map.

Total: _______ Points           Grade:

Grading Scale:

7 Points = 100        6 Points = 90         5 Points = 80         4 Points = 70         0-3 Points = 60

Tina Sanders Blog Post 3: Student Agency

Not Yet… The Power of Yet

I have seen Professor Dweck’s TED Talk “The Power of Yet” before but it was still just as inspiring as the first time. The Power of Yet and the change from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset is one of the reasons I chose to take this class.  I wanted to find new ways to keep my students engaged from the beginning to the end of the learning experience.  As Professor Dweck said, in a fixed mindset students run from the error. But in a growth mindset, in an engaged state, students run toward errors or at least aren’t running away from them. Their brains react as if they are on fire.  They learn as much from the process as from the final outcome of learning. 

We have raised a generation of kids who expect to be rewarded for everything.  My own children were some of the first who received Little League trophies for playing T-Ball when, in all reality, all they ever did was pick flowers and throw their baseball gloves in the air.  So, do we continue to raise kids who are only looking for their next reward that they have not earned? Do we make the final letter grade of A more important than what they learn along the way or do we begin to praise the process itself?

Building the bridge to yet includes praising the process that kids engage in their effort and perseverance. This means that we need to grade process praise instead of just the final praise. This could mean having multiple grades for one project.  In other words, you would have one grade for each section of the project.  For example, one grade for an outline – one grade for the project write up - one grade for pictures that support the project write up – one grade for the reflection. 

The ultimate reward should be the “yet” grade instead of the final grade. The yet grade rewards the efforts, strategies and processes. Those students who struggle are more likely to be more engaged and persevere if they are rewarded for their effort toward and the resulting final project.

I work in a former Title 1 school that even though we aren’t technically a named Title 1 school, we still have the same criterion of students. Their only chance is that we as teachers create a path to the future that changes their mindsets as well as the mindsets of their parents. I actually have experienced that it  is more difficult to change a parents mindset than that of their parents. Just because people think their failure is inevitable, doesn’t mean it has to be.  A good teacher can push them out of their confidence level toward a brighter future.

I like the look of the group work norms and think I will use them in my Genius Hour Project.

Group Work Norms

Be Purposeful                                Be Productive

Stay on task                                   Get a lot done

Focused on our work                    Meeting my goal

Work the whole time                    Collaborative help

Set a goal                                         Work Smarter - Get what I need & I get going

Rating Scale

0 Not yet  1 Started to  2 Almost finished    3 So Close  4 Yes!          Ways to Show What  You Know

Kathy Feigenbaum

Blog #3 Student Agency

I love the idea of building student agency; it gives them life-long skills for learning across the board. When my sixth graders begin middle school, they come excited about a new experience. They buy into learning as we talk about how the brain is affected by language learning. We set goals for the academic year (as well as middle school in general), discuss different strategies for learning (vocabulary especially), and for New Years I always have my students review their goals and write a letter that tells me about how they feel they are doing as far as learning Spanish. I enjoy reading through them, as many are very optimistic. (One boy told me he felt “almost Mexican” because he had learned so much in half a year.)

I am motivated by the video about Believing You Can Improve. Dweck presents ideas that I can definitely use to build student agency in my classes. Middle school students are empowered by the idea that they can scientifically make some changes within themselves. They are at a stage in life where many things are still beyond their control. Giving them some authority over their learning provides them the satisfaction of some control. Growth mindset is extremely beneficial at this time of transition.

I also like the rubrics provided, and plan to adapt them for use in my class. I will still need to come up with numerical grades, of course, but I believe that the rubrics will be useful in engaging my students to work toward improvement. The “power of yet” is also very useful for me. I don’t see how students can move forward without achieving the necessary learning in a unit of study. This is particularly concerning in a class in which material builds upon itself (like math and foreign language.) If I have a student that fails an assignment, I have them “re-do” it after better preparing and/or individual help. I like the idea of using the term “not yet” in place of a low grade. By saying “not yet,” I can let my student know that help is available and it’s just a continuation of the process.

Angie Siegfried - Blog #4 - Genius Hour Reflection

I incorporated Genius Hour with my 8th-period class during On Track time, which is about an hour per week. I initiated Genius Hour on October 23, 2018, and we have continued every Tuesday since then.  I had the students plan an 8^th grade trip to Disney World, and compile the information into a presentation that they will present to administration. We have discussed a group of students on the trip if they meet certain criteria that will be set forth by the administration. The students were extremely excited and dove in head first!  Some students decided to work on fundraising ideas while others focused on the specifics of the trip.  I appointed groups leaders who then delegated responsibilities to the rest of the group. The students are still working to complete the assignment; two groups are almost there!

Next time I may allow the students to choose their groups. One of the groups contained students that had issues with each other, and I was not aware of the issue. I learned that students will work hard for something they are interested in! My challenge is how to make all mathematical concepts as interesting. I am very hopeful as I gear up to introduce the Pythagorean Theorem PBL. 

Tieraney Rice Course 2 Post #4: Genius Hour Reflection

For my Genius Hour, I chose to do a STEM activity AND a LEGO Build with the students in my after school program.  My afterschool students are in K/5-4th grades.  The STEM activity was determining the difference an acid and a base.  The LEGO Build was building structures with LEGOS using task cards.  The student works in groups the STEM activity, and worked individually with the LEGOS (they could help each other if needed).  They recorded results and presented their LEGO creations.
Since we only have a little over two hours together, it seemed to be enough time to complete the tasks.  The STEM activity was one day, and the LEGO build was another day.  For the acid/base activity, I would had them test more liquids than we did.  For the LEGO Build, I would have provided more task cards.
Overall, the students learned the importance of working together during a group activity, how to figure out if a liquid is an acid or a base, and how to be creative with LEGOS.  They were fully engaged in both activities, and they asked many questions.  After giving instructions at the beginning of both tasks, I was able to facilitate while they worked.  

Tieraney Rice Course 2-Post #3: Student Agency

I reviewed the New Tech Rubric for fifth graders.  Being that my students are 3 and 4 years old, they are at the beginning stages in most areas.  For most of my students, my school is the first school environment they've experienced.  Therefore, structure and routine is very important to establish.  They are learning many skills for the first time, so some of them are not willing right away to try new things.  However, that changes quickly when they see other children excited about a new task.  One of the best things about having a multi-age class is that the younger students begin to want to do what the older students do.
I was inspired by Carol Dwek's TED Talk:  The Power of Yet as a parent, as well as an educator.  I'm guilty of encouraging my sons to make all A's because for one, I know they can do it.  Two, I guess we've been conditioned to believe that an "A" symbolizes excellence.  But, I'm inspired by Dwek's research into "growth mindset" vs. "fixed mindset."  I really want my biological children, as well as my students, to always put maximum effort into learning, especially when it comes to taking on new and challenging tasks.  I also want them to know that it's really not about the grade, but what you've learned. This is what I understood "growth mindset" to be after listening to the Talk.  I never want them to feel like they have failed at something and there's no hope, but simply to know that they have not arrived at that point "yet."  This lets them know that they can still get there with perserverance and hard work; and will excel as a result.  I will definitely be mindful of "the power of yet" when interacting with All children.
Early childhood classrooms lend themselves to many ways of providing students with opportunities and experiences that can foster a growth mindset.  Centers or stations is one of these opportunities.  Centers/Stations give students a chance to engage in various activities daily, allowing them to be challenged in many ways. They are really challenged when they are encouraged to spend time in areas that are not their favorite areas.  One Center that comes to mind is the Art Center.  Students tend to approach coloring pictures on a coloring sheet with little to no reservations.  However, some of my students shy away from drawing their own picture of something because they want it to look exactly like the real thing.  Trying to draw your own picture of a house is definitely going to grow the brain's capacity more than just coloring in a house that has already been drawn for you.
I love this......."Are you not smart enough to solve it, or have you just not solved it yet?"

Ashley Blackwelder Blog Post #3: Student Agency

I wasn't expecting to really be blown away by the TED Talk, as I assumed I had the gist of the "growth mindset" idea that we hear so much about these days. I 100% agree that it's a vital mindset to foster in our students--I just didn't expect to really get anything new out of it. Instead, I paused the video halfway through to interrupt my husband who was watching TV, to tell him A GROWTH MINDSET CAN CHANGE THE WAY YOUR BRAIN WORKS! What more evidence do we need that our students need to be encouraged and celebrated when they take risks (and experience setbacks), that the practice of judging based on "success" or "failure" is completely damaging to our students?
I am lucky, because my whole job is really to encourage this mindset in our students. It's a challenge--and it's a slow process when all they've ever known is a fixed mindset. But I'm encouraged by the small steps that I can see in our school, and maybe even more so by the changes that I can see in the mindsets of many of our teachers. Trying to push for PBL, STEM/STEAM, Genius Hour, or student-led ANYthing can be incredibly difficult when the teacher is the one with the fixed mindset, and likely the one who is working with his/her own fears of failure. I've had the opportunity to bring them to my lab (or visit their classrooms), help the kids work on something that's typically messy, noisy, and completely out of their comfort zones, and then point out the ways that their kids succeeded when it appeared to be a giant mess. Bringing attention to the process over the product is huge--and something that many of us still struggle with. But it is starting to happen, slowly but surely. I've seen many students who never excelled at anything--even good behavior--start to stand out in a STEM classroom, because of their willingness to think creatively and RISK failure. Kids who have never experienced failure, on the other hand, struggle at times, because they aren't comfortable with any scenario that has an option other than "right" or "wrong."
Now that we're a few years into our STEM journey, growth mindset is coming, and we definitely have some bright spots already. We still have a long way to go, though, and our grading/testing system doesn't help the situation. I get the pressure that classroom teachers face when it's time to turn in grades and the kids haven't "finished" enough to assess. I also get the pressure of having your "success" determined by the scores your students receive on one test at the end of the year. No matter how supportive your administration is, it's hard to not feel like a failure when things don't go as well as you hoped. It's an exciting but also incredibly difficult time to be an educator. There are SO many great ideas and opportunities for our students right now, but we're limited by a system that doesn't actually put our students' needs first.
So we all just keep doing what we can to encourage the students in our care every day. We allow students to share/present projects that are still in progress, so that they can get feedback from their peers. We celebrate a creative approach to solving a problem, even if the first (or second, or third) attempt isn't quite what we were looking for. We see students' setbacks and frustrations as learning opportunities, and help them to build perseverance and encourage each other. We let them see US make and recover from our own mistakes. Growth mindset is a huge shift for a lot of students and teachers, but there are little things we can do every day to help encourage it.

Alana McSharry- Course 2: Post 3

I read the NTN Agency Rubric for fifth grade. My students are in four-year old kindergarten. After reading the document I recognize that most of my students are between the emerging and developing stage. In four-year old kindergarten students need much more guidance and help at the beginning of the school year. Many students are reluctant to try a new task because they lack the experience or the situation intimidates them. Everything is new to them from lining up to writing their names to playing in centers. As the year proceeds many students will move to proficient and advanced. The process takes time and patience on the part of the students and teachers.

During the Carol Dweck TedTalk I reviewed the idea of a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. A fixed mindset is when a student believes that they cannot improve or a student feels defeated by an assignment or problem before they even start working on it. A growth mindset is when a student believes that they can improve or a student feels challenged by an assignment or a problem but they are willing to work on it. Involved in the growth mindset is the idea of "not yet." The idea of using the words "not yet" to describe a student's learning is interesting and innovative. I will use it when I am talking with my students about their learning. Carol Dweck mentioned that the importance of praising the process and not the results. While I agree with her that the process is as important as the results much of our society gives more value to the results. How do we balance what is good for students with what society expects from them? 

My final thought is that teachers would benefit from a growth mindset because the administration, school districts and state are always giving us new procedures, standards, curriculum and guidelines to learn every year.

Blog Post #4, Genius Hour Reflections

My Genius Hour journey ended up somewhere very different from where I started. Having missed TEN classes with my students (2 weeks of sex ed, a full 6th grade PBL immersion week, me being on a trip for 12 days), I had no clue what I was going to do. In desperation, I emailed Dawn, who recommended trying the individualized learning/personal learning pathways type unit. Once I saw some examples of what that looked like, I was on-board.

After refining the resources I'd been collecting, I designed a hyperdoc for my students on Growth vs. Fixed Mindset. (What I had been planning on teaching anyway!) They have only started the journey this week, but here are some great things I'm seeing: they're engaged, they're motivated, and they are learning with a purpose in mind having found out what their mindsets were before beginning. Those with a fixed mindset are learning in hopes of becoming growth mindset thinkers, and those with growth mindsets are learning about why this matters so much in their lives as students and in their future lives and roles and careers. They are going at their own pace, and choosing the order of the activities they do. They don't feel like they're waiting around for their peers or being dragged along when they really wanted to spend more time diving into something.

What was tricky was not having foreseen how much technological difficulty I would face at the beginning. Some of the video links worked, others didn't. What was cool was that I got to say to my students: "Hey, PBL happening RIGHT HERE!" as I figured out other ways to share the video with them and learned a better way to provide personalized learning pathways via EdPuzzle. (You can make ANY video a lesson with questions, voiceovers, etc!!!) Another thing I'm wondering about is how it will be trying to get everyone to a somewhat approximate finish line when they work at their own pace....

For now, enjoying the process, and looking forward to learning more about PLP and using it in my classroom more frequently.

P.S. In my quest to wrap my head around Genius Hour, I joined the Master Course about it from AJ Juliani. Really good so far, but I'm only a third of the way through. Anyway, worth looking into, and I will definitely use this in my Character Ed class next semester! :)

Blog Post #3, Student Agency

When watching Carol Dweck speak about mindset and reviewing the New Tech rubric for agency in Middle School, I am just shaking my head in wonder. This stuff is so good, but HOW DO WE GET THERE?

I think that a lot of a students' educational experiences are revolving around being "fed" information all day. It's how I learned, and I often notice, I can be guilty of teaching that way when I'm not on my game. Giving too much direct instruction without providing opportunities for students to struggle. The truth is, it's when something is just beyond our reach that we do our best learning. Since we know that, we need to engage students in inquiry by building curiosity. They need to fail, and then get feedback, and then try again. They need to use their relationships with others and actively participate to truly take ownership. We have to make TIME for kids to sink into these experiences and learn by doing.

Even at my school, which has a STEAM/PBL focus, I think many of my students can make it through a good part of their day without having to think critically. Today's students don't particularly like to struggle either, and often shut down. But once they start to see how much they are growing from the struggle, I always notice that they begin to embrace it more.

Many of my own students scored in the strong growth mindset range when they took a quiz on it this week. They realize that they can grow and that intelligence isn't set at birth, but they feel frustrated in the intermediate.

For our students to develop agency, it comes down to one thing. WE (their teachers) have to give them the OPPORTUNITY. That's what comes to me more than anything when I look at this rubric and think about growth mindset. They know they can grow, I know they can grow...now I've gotta let them fail and struggle so they will succeed later.

Rachael Le Mee's Video Analysis

Rachael’s Video Selfie

Piece of Evidence	Importance	Context	Connections	Next Steps
The majority of my students seemed engaged during the independent work time. (This surprised me, but I was glad to see it!)	The fact that the students were engaged means that they are learning and confident about what to do.	-Kids are working on Growth vs. Fixed mindset hyperdocs on their personal laptops. -Students are at tables, so typically a whole table is off-track or on-track, and the kids influence each other quite a bit in their efforts. -Another important element is that this activity had a lot of novelty for them. Novelty leads to higher engagement.	Student engagement and opportunities for active learning are necessary for students to grow and process new information. By letting students explore a curated set of resources about growth mindset, they could learn about themselves, their mindset, and reflect on how it is similar to or different from the mindset of others. ELA Communication Standard 1.5 Review and reflect upon the main ideas expressed to demonstrate an understanding of diverse perspectives.	Plan more hyperdoc and workshop type lessons for my students. They are proving to me that they can not only handle these types of personalized learning pathways, but they also enjoy them and engage them. Plan seats very deliberately so that students can boost each other’s efforts to stay on-track and engaged in learning.
I got in a lot of questions and one-on-one time touching base with students, but it was almost always the “squeaky wheel” students.	I am neglecting huge portions of my class because they are quiet!!! The students with their hands raised are in obvious need. Many others probably struggled quietly (like my boy who barely speaks English). Others could have used the check-in of me just swinging by and asking, “How’s it going?”	There are a whole lot of us in one “fluid” room, and with kids moving at different paces (which is a great thing for them), I wasn’t as in-touch as I could have been. Also, with their technology, I found several navigating between gaming screens and the hyperdoc, and probably would have caught it sooner if I were checking in with EVERYone, not just the vocal kids.	Strong teachers “manage by wandering around.” I was wandering around, but not intentionally enough. I was being more reactive than proactive.	I need to come up with some sort of plan for ensuring that I’m touching base with every student every block, not just my vocal students. Maybe a checklist of sorts on a clipboard I could carry! I could also write the names of my quietest students at the top of the list to make SURE I get to them each class.
My mini-lesson was mini, and my kids still “got it.”	I talk WAY TOO MUCH most of the time, and this proves that, even with a short intro, the kids can get rolling!	I’m often so worried about everyone “getting it” that I beat a dead horse. Less is more when it comes to direct instruction, and in this video I see the proof of that.	The workshop model WORKS for my class. My lengthy lectures and explanations do not. I have been trying to figure out how to harness the power of workshops in Character Ed, and when I devoted this profuse amount of time up front to planning how it would work using hyperdocs, it did!	More mini, less maxi when lesson planning! Devote more time up front in planning to increase time spent with students in the driver seat after.

Initial notes and observations:

1. My kids (for the most part) were very engaged with the Hyperdoc/workshop-type model of learning. That is encouraging and validates that I need to be creating more personalized learning pathways for my students.
2.  
3. Utilizing district technology/knowing its limits is new for me having been in private school the past three years. I realized in class that some videos were viewable by my students, and others weren’t. While I don’t know the rhyme or reason for this, I was able to regroup on the fly before the next block, set up classes in EdPuzzle where I could collect the videos for my kids to see without difficulty, and prepare my next group accordingly. I also took steps to keep my kids informed and explicitly posted what they could/couldn’t work on in the moment so they could stay on track.
4.  
5. I talk to a LOT of kids and answer a LOT of questions in a relatively short time.
6.  
7. I’m getting there….. #justkeepswimming
8.  

Goals:

1. Check in with the quiet kids.
2.  
3. Keep it short and sweet when it comes to direct instruction.
4.  
5. Try to technology troubleshoot as much as possible in advance, and have a backup plan.
6.  
7. Plan more time for students to be in the driver seat via hyperdocs and personalized learning pathways.
8.  

Rachael’s Noticing Rubric

	Needs Improvement	Proficient	Advanced
Identifying What’s Important			I identified what was most important in my classroom and instruction.
Making Connections			I made connections between important parts of classroom instruction and principles of effective teaching.
Incorporating Contextual Knowledge		I incorporated some contextual knowledge into my analysis.
Drafting Next Steps		I generated some next steps in my analysis and plan to implement them.