Students Taking Charge: Inside the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom

1. Students Taking Charge: Inside the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom One effective and powerful method for organizingmass-customized learning in your classroom without losing your mind. Book by Dr. Nancy Sulla Workshop by Julie Housum and Danielle Terrill

2. Talking Points • The Pieces and Parts • Structures – Google Calendar, etc. • The Results – if you don’t believe me, ask the kids • The Mistakes/Tweaks • If at any point in time you have questions for us please leave them in the parking lot.

3. The Pieces of the ALU (Authentic Learning Unit) • The Problem-Based Task • The Analytic Rubric • The Weekly Activity List

4. The Problem-Based Task • Introduce the authentic problem • Create a “felt need” - application first instead of skills first • Take kids through the problem - they identify the skills they need • We learn from grappling with content • Improved retention when content is presented within an authentic context • Appendices from the book • Example: Dystopian Worlds Task Sheet

5. BIG DIFFERENCE • The biggest paradigm shift is creating a “felt need” in students. The teacher is putting the problem/task in front of students FIRST and then brain storming with kids what they will need to know or be able to do in order to solve the problem or complete the task. Here is an example from Nancy Sulla’s book. We will be looking at this from the perspective of the student. Application Skills Skills Application

6. What Do We Need to Know and Be Able to Do To Accomplish Our Task? • Now that we know what our task is it is important to look at the expectations for how the task should be performed. • Nancy Sulla advises that the teacher goes through both the Task Sheet and the Analytic Rubric to make a list with students on what they will need to know and be able to do in order to accomplish the task. • We just went through Educate! and looked at which measurement topics we could certify kids as proficient in, based on the Dystopian Worlds unit.

7. The Analytic Rubric • This rubric has every score for the entire unit on it! • Start with the Practitioner (3) column • Introduce to kids – ask them to make a list of what they think they are going to need to know in order to accomplish the task(s) • Lead a class discussion on the task, what kids need to know and how they will get the information and skills they need

8. List of skills we need

9. The Weekly Activity List • NS calls this “scaffolding for learning” – but remember, kids already have the felt need. They know the end-game: “When am I going to need this?” Uh, some time in the next X weeks. • Variety of Activities: Required, Choice and Optional • What’s Choice this week may become Required next week. • Opt-out option, mandatory “invitation”, record keeping • Example DW Weekly Activity Lists

10. The Parts - Teacher, Clone Thyself • Benchmarks – 20 minute lessons • Minilessons – small groups of 4-5, 10-15 minutes + work • How-tos • Video tutorials • Class experts – home groups, other kids – posting these • Outside experts – Mrs. Wotton, other • Everyone is a teacher – Mrs. Pietras • Teacher conferences (ONLY as a last resource but whenever kids need it)

11. Student Responsibility for Learning:“If things aren’t going the way you want them to, ADD A STRUCTURE OR STRATEGY.” • Google calendar • Share calendars with peers and teacher • Teach kids to estimate and follow a TIME FRAME (teacher pace or be • To Do Lists / Tasks • Include notes • Attach documents • Google Notes • Google Drive and Edmodo • We want to try out Doctopus to make sharing documents with students even easier! • Individual Conferences – kid-scheduled and/or teacher-scheduled, can be during study hall, etc. • “Invitation” to minilessons, Opting out of Minilessons • Later – kids can and should design their own products to show what they know • Weekly Self-Reflections

12. Results: Ask Us Questions! • Relief/ Eye rolling • Kids felt it because “the teachers finally figured out I can do some work on my own!” • JG – learning how I work (instead of taking her back to the old structure we put more structures in place for her to do the work. • DM – “I find working this way much less stressful.” • TL – working on Google Drive on Sunday Feb 2 at 7:54 am (one of 13 kids). She’d been on on Friday, too! • JG – SpED kids • Educate will help kids level up.

13. Mistakes and Tweaks…. • Forgot time frame at first! • Organization - Keeping track of attendance at minilessons, conferences • Marzano – refer to the analytic rubric and task objectives more often – daily home group SOPs? • Stick to the schedule – let kids know well in advance • Not emphasizing class experts continuously enough • SOP for Google Calendar and To do Lists in Home groups. • Educate!?

14. …and Future Plans • Aligning to Educate! • Designing more ALUs • Tracking student progress and celebrating success • Collaboration • Community • Complex Reasoning Skills • Speaking and Listening

15. Now! • Take a short break, stretch, visit our parking lot, go to the bathroom and then decide if you would like to sign up for mini lessons.