Engaged Students!!!

Friday was the first class period where I truly felt all of the student were engaged in the career unit. Some of my observations:

• Each student was working the entire period on one aspect of their project. Some were planning Powerpoints, some were making brochures, several were designing the look of the kiosk, several were looking for photos or video clips from unitedstreaming.com for their projects.
  
• There was a lot of questions and interactions among group members like:
• Does this look OK?
• Let's each find good photos of the careers we researched.
• I think we should videotape some people for our project.
• Can you help me make a hyperlink on this slide?
• You work on the brochure and I will design the poster board, ok?
• What is the address of our wiki with all of our ideas?
  
• We should have cookies or candy at our presenation to encourage people to come to our booth (love this one!)
  
• At the end of the period, one freshmen remarked, "Wow, I got a lot done today. This is fun".
  

To me it has felt like it has taken a long time for the engagement to happen. Here are some of the reasons I think why:

• It was a new semester of mixed age levels and it took a long time for the students to get comfortable talking with each other (perhaps because of the # of freshmen in class?)
• The research component took longer than I expected and some of the students had a hard time figuring out what information was important to collect.
  
• I should have waited and introduced the Excel component AFTER we started creating the kiosks. For many students, Excel was a new program and even though we completed a practice spreadsheet together, several were confused about how to set up their career data. I think their uneasiness about doing it "right" dimished their level of excitement about the project.
• It might have been better to save this unit until later in the semester when the students had a higher degree of technical skills. At first they seemed lost of how to make their kiosk project interactive and "student friendly". After I showed them some samples of Powerpoint games and simple videos, the students seemed eager to try them.
• The idea of presenting their career projects to other students might make some kids uncomfortable - resulting in less engagement.

I am planning a survey this week to gauge their reactions to the project so far.

Constructivist group work

Today I (tried to) embrace a constructivist view of teaching Excel.

All last week students have been collecting information about their particular career. Last Friday, I demonstrated the basics of how to write a formula in Excel and setting up a spreadsheet.

I wrote up instructions for the assignment and placed it on Moodle:

• As a group you will select data from your career research to analyze in Excel and graph the results.
• Choose which data you are going to analyze in Excel (ie, national salary, Oregon salary, years of education, etc..).
• Set up your spreadsheet with your data.Include a descriptive title and column labels.Choose several functions to analyze the data (SUM, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, COUNT)
• Format your spreadsheet in an attractive manner.Select one set of data to graph.Look up resources for making graphs (charts) in Excel. See: http://p6compapps.wikispaces.com/Excel
• Choose a graph that best represents your data (line, pie, bar, etc)Be sure to include Chart Title, labels, and make full page.
• Print one copy of chart and spreadsheet.
• Turn in by Friday, February 23rd.

I gave the students 3 resources:

1. Excel wiki page: contains notes and directs students to pages in the textbook for help
2. Excel help menu
3. WINK tutorial showing how to make a graph in Excel

... and then I let them get together in their groups and plan how they were going to accomplish their goal (and I left them alone).

Observations:

• Groups immediately started talking about their plan
• Many groups divided up the task and each person is graphing one aspect.
• Groups realized they did not have all the information they needed and I observed several going back to their sources to find facts
• Many asked for clarification of how I wanted them to set up the spreadsheet - and I turned it around and told them to decide as a group.
• I was suprised how many kids were working independently.
• Two groups were very social and talking a lot (which included some chatter and some instructions.)
• I observed two students going back to the book for specific instructions.
• 4-5 students were able to make their graph in one period - but several reported that they were missing data.

I will definitely need to check for understanding in a couple of days and plan more activities with graphs to make sure ALL students understand the steps.

If I was truly embracing a constructivist view I wouldn't give them any specific directions at all ... (baby steps .. baby steps)

Reviewing my Desired Goals

I pulled out my UbD project plan to look over my Desired Goals of my career unit:

• Oregon Department of Education career related learning standards:
• Students will develop skills to assess personal characteristics, interests, abilities, and strengths.
• Students will develop skills in identifying, evaluating, and using a variety of resources for exploring personal, educational, and career choices.
• National Educational Technology standards for students:
• NETS*S #3: Students use productivity tools to collaborate in constructing technology-enhanced models, prepare publications, and produce other creative works.
• NETS*S #4: Students use telecommunication to collaborate, publish and interact with peers, experts, and other audiences
• NETS*S #5: Students use technology tools to locate, evaluate, and collect information from a variety of resources.

I decided to do a quick check of how I am doing on meeting some of these goals:

• This past week my students did a great job of using technology tools to locate and collect information and a little bit of evaluation - but I think I will focus a blog topic on that.
• Students will start to prepare some type of documentation and an interactive component of their Career kiosk this week.
• We are using wikispaces for collaborative planning of the career projects. Maybe I could encourage the students to seek out resources by experts through email or listservs.
• The students took a personality career survey and identified which traits matched particular careers. They also used the Librarians pathfinder to locate information on careers. I think they need to look outside of the Internet for more sources: interviews, primary documents, videos on unitedstreaming, etc.
• I'm still a little unsure of how specific technology skills are developing. I need to find a better way to assess this in an authentic manner.
• The groups are still a little uneasy around each other. I was hoping blogging would help the communication issues - I will encourage more communication on the wiki and Moodle.
• I feel a little uneasy about the progress so far. Its going OK - but I don't yet see the "excitement" of making an authentic project yet. I think it will help when they start assembling the kiosk and making the interactive component. We'll see ...
  

Direct Instruction - Excel formulas

For the career project, I want the students to collect authentic career data to place into Excel so they can organize, analyze, and graph the results of their research.

I quickly checked to see how many students had used Excel before and when I realized that more than 2/3 were not familiar with Excel, I took a class period to stop research and teach a basic lesson in how to write formulas in Excel.

I had the students take 5 minutes to set up a simple spreadsheet that included some data so I could introduce the following functions: SUM, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, AND COUNT. I felt like these would be the most beneficial when they began analyzing their career data. I purposely decided NOT to use their career data for this lesson because I wanted that experience to be more authentic - but later on during the lesson - I questioned this decision.

I spent most of the period demonstrating how to write a formula in Excel as the students followed along and practiced on their own computers. Most students did a good job of following the directions and I only had to stop one or twice for clarification or demonstration. Students liked learning about some of the time-saving features, like AutoSum and the copy fill handle.

At one point during the lesson I felt like I had regressed back to my old teaching habits of being the "sage on the stage". I am conflicted - on one hand the students were unfamiliar with Excel and needed some instruction to be successful - and on the other hand - I felt like I through out my constructivist methodology by NOT using authentic data and allowing them to figure it out for themselves.

Next week when I have them set up their career spreadsheets I am definitely going to explain to them what resources they have to figure out how to analyze their data and stand back and let them flounder a bit in groups to see what they can do for themselves. I think back to Vygotsky and his Zone of Proximal Development. These kids are pretty bright - and I think I have given them some basic information that will help them in their analysis but I tried not to teach them everything they needed to know - and give them a chance to teach each other.

This "letting go" is a bit harder than I thought it would be.

Tapping other resources

I am so thankful for my school Librarian who helped put together a pathfinder of links for my students to use as they begin their career research.

The class was divided into 6 groups - one group for each career personality trait: realistic, investigative, social, enterprising, artistic, and conventional (from John Holland). I had each student take a career self-assessment from http://eslmi03.esc.state.nc.us/soicc/planning/c1a.htm and then placed students into groups by one of their top personality groups. (Watching the interactions in the personality groups is a psychological study in itself!!).

One of my overall goals is from NETS*S Students use technology tools to locate, evaluate, and collect information from a variety of resources. The Librarian directed the students to Internet sites that had currenty career information (see below) but also encouraged the students to use print and video resources (unitedstreaming.com). Giving the students a jumping off point encouraged them to start with authentic sources and prevented them from googling their career choice and coming up with lots of unwanted websites.

The next day the groups met together and each student shared with their group where they got some information, and briefly evaluated the site for accuracy and ease of use. It was great to see some kids who were floundering the first day actually take th advice of their classmates and use those sites.

I've encouraged each of the groups to explore 6-10 careers in their category and include careers that do and do not require a college education.

The initial research class periods went well and except for one group - everyone has already researched at least 6 careers - we are off to a good start.

Site	Description
America's Career InfoNet	A gateway site. Gives customized Occupation Profile reports; includes wage estimations. Gives links to sites about specific careers.
Bureau of Labor Statistics	Gateway site from the U.S. Dept. of Labor.
California Occupational Guides	Select the letter of your occupation.
CareerZone	Provides information on 900 occupations.
collegeboard.com	Careers section. Especially good at telling you what to expect & how to prepare.
Exploring Occupations: Careers	Information on over 200 careers. Especially good at supplying relevant career links. (Canadian)
Alberta Occupational Profiles	In depth information on specific careers. Note: salaries are in Canadian dollars. Search by title, interest, subject or industry.
Job Profiles.org	Delve into 9 groupings of careers to find your career choice.
JobStar Central	Supplies many links to specific career web sites.
Monster: Job Profiles	A not-so-usual list of jobs & their description
Occupational Employment Statistics	Employment and wage estimates for over 800 occupations. Click here for a PDF file of "Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2005" found on this page.
Occupational Outlook Handbook	In case you missed it earlier, here is the "gold standard" in occupation information.
Oregon Career Information System	Access this extensive database from Multnomah Co. Library. You'll need your public library barcode number for online use. Or go inside the Beaverton Library to use it.
The Riley Guide	Links to particular career sites. "A-Z Index" is the easiest way to find your particular career.Be sure to click on "Salary Guides and Guidance."
SchoolFinder: Career Categories	A Canadian site giving information about many careers. Be sure to click on topics in the orange tool bar!

Skills Assessment

I attempted to use Moodle's quiz module for a short Word vocabulary test today. First of all I found out that the module is good for some questions but not for others. Its great for multiple choice and true/false - those are easy and it will even randomly place answers for each student - which is nice in a computer lab where everyone can see each other's screens. I tried using the short answer feature - that one didn't work as well. I had to go back and re-score about 8 tests that wrote something correct - but not my choice of word. I wanted to use matching for vocabulary - but the module makes you list the name number of words and definitions and I wanted extra definitions.

So, as an assessment tool, its OK but not great. I think in the future I might use it for a quick pop quiz just to check understanding. I do like the Journal module in Moodle. The students write a private message to me and I can respond back to them and I can give them a grade or not.

I am struggling with assessment a little in my implementation. I keep going back to my goals and asking myself "What does this look like and how do I know the students are meeting these goals?". Right now I am not sure if my assessments up to this point are accurately anwering that question.

Teaching skills and embracing a constructivist view

Today I was feeling a little uneasy about giving up my formal sequence of lessons of "how to do <insert skill here>. I am trying to embrace more of a constructivist approach in my lessons and allow the students to discover the information as needed. My tendancy to teach them everything they need to know about, for example, indents - unfortunately, this showed up in my lesson today.

I have created a wiki to list the Word skills as we use them in projects, and give students references to pages of my former textbook to access for additional help but today I found myself going back to my old ways and conducting a lesson on "the 5 different types of indents". Why was I doing this? Was there a need to learn indents or did one of the activities require the students to learn what the indent markers on the Word screen??? NO! It was me and my controlling behavior that showed up instead. Its great to point out a few things to help students to make their lists, or citations easier to read - but I taught the skill just for the sake of teaching the skill - the exact thing I didn't want to do in this Unit.

So, part of this ARP is for me - to help me change my behavior and trust that when the students have a need to learn indents, I can take that time and turn it into a "teachable moment" and the students will be more engaged because they have a need to learn that skill.

Tables for organizing research

Today's lesson had two goals:

• Research John Holland's 6 personality traits for careers.
• Introduce how to use TABLES to organize information.

Before I started the lesson, I asked students to log into Moodle and answer a one question survey about their previous knowledge of how to use tables. The results were:

• I have never used tables before - 2 students
• I've used tables before but don't know how to create or modify them - 4 students
• I could figure out how to use tables with help - 3 students
• I know how to create and modify tables - 8 students
• Tables are awesome - I use them all the time - 0 students

This information was very helpful to me when I later started the demonstration because I focused my extra help on the students who were unfamiliar with tables.

The Lesson:

I asked students look google "john holland" + career and see what information is listed. The students quickly found out that John Holland was a researcher who organized careers by personality traits: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, conventional. Students bookmarked several sites for further investigation.

I introduced the idea of using a table in Word to organize information. Students created a 8x3 table as I demonstrated how to merge & split cells, make cells larger or smaller, and add columns or rows.

The students then used the information from the various sources to write a description of each personality trait and list some careers in that category.

Observation:

• All students were actively engaged in the research of personality traits.
• Most students access 2-3 websites for their information.
• Those students who were not familiar with tables asked for some specific assistance but most of the students did not have any difficulty creating the tables.
• I only observed two students copying and pasting information from the websites to their document - even though I asked them to put the information into their own words.

CMS: Using Moodle

I unveiled the launch of Moodle today with my Computer Applications students. After a few problems of email authentification, all of my students can now access the site. My goal for using Moodle is to create a space where I can communicate with my students and also encourage communication between students.

Since I am new to Moodle, I am slowly rolling out different modules. I started with a discussion forum to encourage communication between students (a get to know each other activity) and asked them to update their profile with a photo. Since my class is mixed grades 9-12 - having photos should help everyone learn names and hopefully overcome the territorial behavior associated with my computer students (they sit at the same computer everyday!).

The overall reaction was positive to the site. Accessing the forums and blog areas wasn't difficult for anyone (thank you MySpace) and all student were actively engaged in the activity.

Direct Instruction - Word skills

Today's lesson had two goals:

1. Students wrote a survey to ask a parent, teacher, or adult friend about their career.
2. Skills focus: Word formatting, numbering, indents, and styles.

Using the career questionaire as the topic, I asked students to brainstorm and write questions they could ask a parent, teacher, or adult friend about their career. I used this lesson to teach some specific skills in Word:

• How to write their name of the paper: View / header and footer / type name and assignment name
• Quickly review keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl+S=save, Ctrl+Z=Undo, Ctrl+B=Bold
• Using the "gutter" to select one line or a paragraph
• Identifying the indent markers when you choose number formatting
• Purpose of styles, how to apply and modify them.
• Using line spacing for questionaire.

I ran out of time. On Monday I will follow up with customizing numbering styles and how to use the indent markers.

Since this format of teaching Word skills is new to me I feel that I need to make sure the students have reference information to refer to when I introduce a new concept. I have decided to add a page to our Career wiki for specific skills (ie: definitions, how to's) and add additional resources for more assistance. I will direct student to the wiki when I introduce a skill and I will base future vocabulary quizzes on this material @ http://p6compapps.wikispaces.com/Word

Career Theme - concept maps

The six week unit for my ARP will be focused on exploring careers. To introduce the topic I asked the students if money or education was not an issue, what three careers would they want to do in the future (thanks Melissa for the idea!). It was fun to go around the room and hear the results. I found it revealing and it already gave me insights into the personalities of the students in my class. Originally I had planned to have the students make concept maps (using Inspiration) to detail the various positive and negative attributes associated with careers - but since the mood was so light-hearted and fun I changed the assignment.

I asked each student to make a concept map the answered the question: The "best" career would include ... what? Students then brainstormed attributes like: I would be in charge, I would help people, I would make lots of money. I allowed students time to format their concept map with images if they wanted. They printed a copy to turn in.

My plan is to save these concept maps and use them at the end of the unit to see if they still agree with these statements after they have spent 5 weeks exploring careers. Once again, I found the activity revealing and has helped me get a better sense of who these students are.