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Permalink Reply by kherron on May 18, 2007 at 9:05am

Ginger, Kevin has told me good things of you and I am very excited to get to know you and share ideas! I am completing my first year of teaching now and am off to explore another new first year at the Thomas County Academy next year. I am excited about this and have tons of ideas and am open to more - as well as much help from experiences of others to help me learn how to make things work. My biggest fear - having all of this access and not applying it into the hands of the kids. Again, looking forward to collaborating with you - Kevin said something about a 3D curriculum??????? My brain was spinning on my morning drive with where this could lead, just wondering what the thoughts are at this time so can get my brain on the right track, or possibly to focus on 1 or 2 tracks and accomplish that then move to the next track. haha Looking forward to hearing your ideas!

Permalink Reply by Ginger Lewman on May 18, 2007 at 5:58pm

Hello! Honestly, I'm not sure how this is going to go. I know it can likely be called so many different names. All I want to do is call it good for kids!

Currently I'm teaching grades 5-8 and have brought them together for many of their classes. I also have eliminated our Language Arts class, since the kids are reading/writing in every single class and we can address these issues there, for the most part. I'd like to collect/create a few 5-6 overarching concepts and create projects that move THROUGH the concepts and address not only the standards (as bare minimum), but also allow students to learn in a real-world setting.

I've become nearly irate at the fact that we as educators often refer to the school and "the real world" as separate entities. Why in tarnation do our schools not more accurately reflect the real world??? I know that my children are ready for something spectacular. This year, I tossed them a number of fast balls and they hit it out of the park each time. They're ready for the big-leagues...even if I'm not a big-league manager!

I know that by bringing in open possibilities and people (INCLUDING students) with open, innovative minds, I have full confidence that we can generate an amazing answer to our dilemma. Glad to have you on board! Please keep sending your thoughts and we'll get some answers!

Permalink Reply by Lisa Parisi on May 19, 2007 at 5:55am

Hi Ginger,
I LOVE your comment on children being ready for something spectacular (and real world) and you being game for it. I feel the same way. We (I teach fifth grade in a collaborative - reg ed and spec ed - classroom) introduced SmartBoards, podcasting, blogging, and website creation to the students this year and they did much more than just meet our expectations. We have already started discussing what to do next year...we won a grant through Cablevisions PowertoLearn for our website/podcasting lessons. We are planning to use some of the money to purchase a webcam. We want to collaborate online with other like-minded classes. We are also planning to use wikis to run research projects. The excitement just keeps growing. Of course, so does our work - learning about all the new technology and how to use the equipment does take time. But I'm proud of what we learned and accomplished this year. Next year? I can't wait!

http://herricks.org/webpages/spcollaborative/
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=88116

Permalink Reply by kherron on May 19, 2007 at 9:51am

AMEN!!! I tought in a 5th grade class room this year and offered integrated unit ideas to the kids that they got to take as far as they wanted. And WOW! I was impressed and they had a good time doing it. Next year I am taking on the Thomas County Academy which is 6 - 8 grade and all students have their own ILP. I integrated this year and plan to continue. I am always open to new ideas and want to get these kids applying their knowledge as they learn it. I was recently explaining the idea of TCA and this style of learning to a friend that was here for training as a K-9 officer unit. I simply said this, "It is the same as you are doing now (they were here on a 4 day training with real scenarios to be worked) are you and your K-9 partner going to learn more by sitting in a classroom being told about the situation and asked what to do, OR being out here actually doing it and learning from the experience?" He instantly understood. I like you say, why aren't we doing this with ALL of our students?!

Question for right now, how did you upload the yackpack to this page? I have played with yackpack but have not gotten anyone to respond to actually use it and feel if it becomes more available to our fellow educators they will be more apt to try it out - I think that is what I am loving more and more about these groups is that it puts everything into 1 location and you dont have to remember what and where they all are - therefore they do not become forgotten tools.

Thanks for sharing!!!

Permalink Reply by Ginger Lewman on May 19, 2007 at 10:58am

I went to the YackPack site and they have a few widgets and items there that you can embed into your site. I'm not sure this thing works here, though. I'd LOVE to try it out--actually last nite I said hi to someone, but either they didn't have speakers or a mic, or it didn't work.

Permalink Reply by Ginger Lewman on May 19, 2007 at 11:08am

To everyone visiting, I have another question:
I know there are different ideas of 'integrated.' What do you all mean when you use that term?

When I describe my idea, I mean that the kids will have a math class (since math hasn't ever been shown to do well with full Project Based Learning), but the rest of the school, we'll not have what is currently thought of as a Social Studies class, or a Science class. The kids will be working on various projects they've been "hired" to complete.
Again, as I'm explaining my hazy vision to more and more people, it comes more solidified in my mind.

Kids will have "cubicle" workspaces for individual work and storing their materials. There will be collaboration workspaces, research labs/areas, board rooms, distance-learning studios, and other real-world type of spaces in our school. We'll have a gym for exercise equipment for break times. Of course this takes a LOT of room; WAY more room than just simply having 15 kids in desks, in straight rows will take. But I'm SO excited for what's taking shape.

One final must-have: I cannot set up a space as permanent. We must be able to adjust our space to reflect whatever project we're working on. As Kevin Honecutt says--we can start with a blank room, and like a stage, place our furniture and props as appropriate for the play. Then clear the stage afterward and start again. Of course the kids are deeply involved in this, as they MUST be.

Tell me your thoughts, ideas, add-ons, or "uh-oh, have you thought about this problem" comments!

Permalink Reply by kherron on May 20, 2007 at 12:46am

I think I use integrated the same as you do. If a project unit or topic is given with the right wording it opens up all subject areas to be addressed. I have used this idea even in a "regular" setting classroom and felt like it went well. (These are on my webpages - under the social studies pages you can click on the pdf files to view the assignment as I gave it to the students- at http://www.usd352.k12.ks.us/teachers/north/kherron_site/Welcome.html Please let me know what your ideas and thoughts are on these and any tweaking ideas. Keep in mind at this point I had a class of 22 that was assigned to work in groups to complete the projects where in the future my students will be more individualized - however I think the same concepts apply. My daughter and I were just talking about integration of subjects tonight and how it really makes it all more applicable and easier to understand without feeling like "just another assignment to complete."

I really like your idea of how you "hired" your students to complete the job. I too use a business based approach to motivate students and have seen it tweaked many different ways. How does your system work. Looking for ways to motivate 6-8 graders, TCA has had a business in place but they seemed to lose interest in earning the money. So am open to new ideas and approaches to it. I was successful this year with it in my 5th grade class and have some new ideas in ways to go with it but am always open to more.

It sounds as if our rooms are somewhat similar in being designed to have individual and group workspaces and no rows of desk. I had not thought of setting a specific area up for distant learning studio, but think I will. We have access to this but it is not a "set" area. I am thinking that if we had it set up and easily accessible the students would be more apt to use it regularly.

Math question - what math curriculum are you using? I am planning on doing the math training this june via essdack - any ideas with more ways to integrate it?

What does your science look like? These are areas that I will be directly addressing this summer for next year so really would like various views to grow from.

Thanks!

Permalink Reply by Ginger Lewman on May 20, 2007 at 3:48pm

Kim--I looked over your site and really like that you posted the project assignment with the products. I'm a believer of doing less teaching so the kids can do more learning, and that seems to be what you're doing too!

Lesson plans that begins with "You've been hired by..." or "You are a..." are terrific ways to let the kids take the lead and the direction of their own learning. I've been pleasantly surprised this year at what they'll do if I just step out of their way and be the proverbial "guide on the side." It's MUCH easier said than done!

Math curriculum--this year, I didn't have a lot of control regarding our math choices. We understood that Project/Problem-Based Learning cannot be the sole method for learning math, so the kids got to work with the online K12 curriculum. It's wonderful because kids can progress at their own pace, but that means that we had a classroom of kids each on their own different topic--especially since we've mixed age groupings. It's been rough on the teacher there and we plan to do more replacing with projects when we can. Which training at ESSDACK are you planning to attend? We may meet there!

Science--I worked with small groups and we hit Earth Science, Space Science, Ecology, and Physics/Physical Science this year. Why did I pick those? We didn't have decent lab materials for Biology or Chemistry. We'll hit those more this coming year.

Hiring kids--this really wasn't too much of a primary focus this last year, but it WILL be next year. I also am SO fortunate in that I have several rooms/spaces in which to work with about 16 kids.

The distance learning lab will be for the planned-for Polycom, but we'll also be using less-exciting collaboration software such as Xmeeting, Marratech, video iChat, and things like that. We also learned how to use bubbl.us and Google Docs to collaborate.

You know, a few of us are going to be meeting at essdack the week of July 9 to lock ourselves into a room for about 3 days to map out a 3D curriculum. I think we'll have some people in virtually, as well as in person. It seems as if we're trying to do the same sorts of things. Let me know if you're feeling up to trying this out. I think that money can be a big motivator for kids, but only if they see real gains and they have a stake in continuing it.

I've found that when teachers teach traditionally, then try to implement PBL to supplement the curriculum--whether to just make it fun, or to actually create depth to learning--the kids are LESS apt to buy in if they still have traditional work to complete for grades. This year I have EXTREMELY grade-oriented students and have been successful in minimizing a grading system for quality work. The feedback they receive is NOT in the form of grades--except at the end of the quarter. It's worked well for kids to focus on work gained--not grades achieved or projects "done good enough," but not so well for parents as they try to keep tabs on their kids' progress. I'm going to have to find a middle ground for this. If you have ideas, let me know.

Otherwise, if you'd like to see a piece of my kids' work, email me privately and I'll give you the passwords to our Turning Point Learning Center website!

Permalink Reply by kherron on May 20, 2007 at 6:48pm

email is being sent now! Thanks!!! As far as the July meeting, Kevin did mention this to me and it may be possible either virtually or in person. I would really like to be there but am really trying to keep July open to my kids as June and August are already completely filled and they need me for at least a little bit of the summer - and I probably need to take it so as not to become burnt out before it even starts. (or before burning out my family before I even start)

Permalink Reply by Ginger Lewman on May 20, 2007 at 8:22pm

Amen to family burn-out. While I don't have kids (allows me to devote more time to my career), my poor husband and dog don't know who the stranger walking into the house in the evenings.

No one can speak to burn-out levels but yourself and your family, but just so you know, I'm picturing about 3 days of work. We all need to take care of ourselves first!

Permalink Reply by Lisa Parisi on May 21, 2007 at 5:32pm

How fascinating to follow this discussion!

Integrating is the easy part for me. Every lesson seems to cover multiple subjects and we just put it all together as needed.
Turning it real is much harder. I work in a district where mixed messages are given. We are encouraged to stretch, try new things, attempt anything....as long as test scores stay up and parents are happy.

Parents being happy means they know how their children are doing, they see test prep being covered, they see results. Our website has taken care of many issues with what the class is doing, but test prep is hard. I personally prefer to just teach children to read, write, and solve math problems. Then they will do well on tests and we won't have to worry. But we do need to coordinate with other teachers on the grade who aren't quite in tuned with our ideas. So we throw in some test prep just to keep everyone happy.

And we slowly integrate...um...blogging for real world writing, podcasting about books to encourage more indepth understanding of books, curriculum simulations (such as Ellis Island) to give the students a real understanding of topics. And then we throw in extras like joining the Planet Earth webinar...not curriculum related at all but such fun and what a lesson for the children about how others from around the world were doing what we were doing!

As far as the room goes, we still have rows of desks, useful for teacher directed lessons with a class full of special needs students in a reg ed class. Less distracting. But the children also have two tables to move to, a carpet in front of the SmartBoard to sprawl on, the hallway, the computer lab and library across the hall, and the science room next door. They also move desks and chairs around frequently. So at any one time, children are all over the place working in groups, working individually, using laptops, writing, reading...everything.

So far it works. We sort of get the best of both worlds...a controlled environment when needed and a working environment always. Is it perfect? No. Is it a start? Yes. And I get to come here and read discussions about where I should be heading. It gives me something to strive for.

Permalink Reply by Ginger Lewman on May 21, 2007 at 6:30pm

I'm glad people are "listening in." You do integrated lessons? Can you share an example of one of the best ones? Best can mean that it covered the most ground, or that the kids liked it the best, or that you enjoyed it best. "best" is by your own definition.

I'm not an elementary teacher (or at least not officially trained), so this is a new skill for me. I know it shouldn't be as hard as I think it is. It's just that I want to get rid of SS and Science "classes" next year and focus on big-concept ideas. I'm worried and confident both. Is that possible? Nervously confident?

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