Video evidence & reflection for student-led conferences

Video evidence and reflection

How PAML scaffolds screencasts for students

Students and their families at Peoples Academy Middle Level have participated in student led conferences for a number of years now. What’s new this year? The opportunity for each 5th and 6th grader to tell the story of their learning through video evidence and reflection. It’s these “Learner Story” videos they share at their conferences.

Let’s examine how one middle school in Vermont invites their learners to create video evidence and reflection for their PLPs. Now let’s see how Peoples Academy Middle Level fosters and supports this process that then re-feeds the PLPs in question.

The setup

Many Vermont educators facilitate identity building work at the start of the school year. They do so through teacher advisory and as part of Personal Learning Plan (PLP) development. Students explore the questions “Who am I?” both as learners and as integral members of their school community. Knowing students well means we are better positioned to support them on their learning journeys.

Yet, often this identity work stops after this initial back-to-school and PLP prep ends.

Enter: the student-led conference

A teacher-generated video example launches the project. Students consider how to meet the requirements of sharing learning aligned to clear targets from their interdisciplinary project-based work:

  • Include at least 5-6 pieces of evidence from Expedition
    • Explain in writing or speaking:
      • What was the assignment?
      • What did you learn?
      • Did it meet a learning target?

Expedition at Peoples Academy is an integrated studies course team taught by seven educators. Their driving question?

How Do Communities Thrive?

Students select evidence of learning to reflect on. And they *explicitly* link this evidence to clear learning targets. And they do it with video stories.

Izzy’s “Learner Story”

Spoiler: it’s a video.

Let’s jump right in to 6th grader Izzy’s Learner Story, below, then look at how the PAML educators support and guide students with the creation process.

Video evidence and reflection for a student-led conference

Amazing, right? So good. So comprehensive and clear, and quite a few signposts guiding you through Izzy’s learning journey! (Btw, a big THANK YOU to Izzy and the PAML folx for sharing that video.)

Now let’s reverse-engineer it:

Check out the full slide deck PAML educators share with their students. It spells out how students should:

  • review the learning they are engaged in;
  • curate their evidence;
  • and tell compelling visual stories of how they met shared learning goals.

It provides a solid foundation of instruction for getting students to sit down and think concretely about what to include in their videos.

(Grab yourself a copy of this fabulous resource by going to File > Copy.)

The slide deck asks students the following questions:

  • What’s your story?
  • What have we done?
  • How are you feeling about your student-led conference?
  • What do you need to include in your Learner Story?
    • A link to your math and expo slideshow
    • 5-6 pieces of evidence from Expedition (boom: examples!)
    • What you learned
    • Whether it met a learning target
  • What are you proud of? What didn’t go so well? (Rose and Thorn protocol) What could you do differently next time?

And finally:

  • What are you looking forward to next?

Format: keep it simple

Video evidence and reflection, as a term, can conjure up visions of 20-minute documentaries with a full cast and multiple dance numbers. And yet, PAML keeps it simple with screencasting.

Stop! Pedagogy time: focus on skills over tools

Sylvia Tolisano in her post  12 ideas for amplified forms of digital storytelling  explains what she sees as a strategic choice to include video as a medium. In this way, digital “Learning Stories” amplify the learning because they tap into “previously unknown possibilities.”

Documenting by capturing evidence of learning and sharing it in a strategic way allows for the development of a learning story. Take digital portfolios to the next level and go beyond the accumulation of disconnected artifacts to curate strategic evidence of learning. Create connections (chronological or non-linear) between them. Make reflections and metacognition (the thinking about your thinking) visible. Make your learning process and your growth visible. The learning story can become an inspiration for others, when you share and make your learning trials, obstacles and mistakes visible to others. The act of documenting and telling your learning story can become an integral part of the process of learning itself.”

Peoples Academy teachers value both the process and product.

Students revisit, reflect upon, and synthesize their learning as they create these Learner Stories. In this way, teacher advisors say they’ve learned so much about the students in their advisories simply by watching the videos as they help students prepare for conferences.

Multiple ways to create Learner Stories?

Check out Richard Byrnes’ list of digital storytelling resources for your students to share their Learning Stories.

(Want to know more about Student Led Conferences? We’ve gotcha covered. Plus, check out Katy Farber’s Padlet.)

Now, how might you create opportunities for all learners to reflect on and represent their growth through digital storytelling?

How to build teacher advisory

Peoples Academy Middle Level action research advisory

Peoples Academy Middle Level shares their action research

“It’s getting personal”. Peoples Academy Middle Level teachers discuss how they’ve created personal connections with students in their TAs (teacher advisories), and the difference that’s made to classroom environments. Presented at the 2017 Middle Grades Conference, at the University of Vermont.

 

Peoples Academy Middle Level on building teacher advisory

 

Transcript pending.

3 ways to use virtual bulletin boards

virtual bulletin board corkulous

Padlet, Google Keep and Corkulous — oh my!

1.Padlet

Padlet’s been a go-to for a number of our educators for a while now, based on both its easy drag-and-drop interface and the ability to add photos and video to individual boards. We’ve seen it used

Corey Smith, at Proctor Elementary School, uses Padlet to organize roles and responsibilities in group work. Check out how she organized this Padlet board so that students can clearly see and reference the responsibilities that go along with each role.

Made with Padlet

Additional resources:

2. Google Keep

For Google schools, Google Keep can be invaluable as a collaborative project management tool. Each Google account automatically has access to a virtual space where they can create post-its for data management. These post-its can be shared with other Google users, can include HTML and links, as well as images and — get this –drawings!

 

3. Corkulous

Meet Corkulous: a free iOS app and browser-based corkboard tool.

Sixth grade educator Joe Speers is using the tool for vocabulary development. The drag-and-drop format allows students to create one post on the board showing the word itself and a definition. Next they can bring in a picture that illustrates the definition of the word and physically link them together.

Using Corkulous to help students with vocabulary

 

How do you use virtual bulletin boards with your students?

 

How to get students to communicate with families

how to get students to communicate with their families

Welcome to the Best Part of My Week

And yours, likely. Peoples Academy Middle Level educator Joe Speers shares how to get students to communicate with their families. He uses a technique called The Best Part of My Week.

How to get students talking with families, with Explain Everything

Speers’ sixth grade students use the iOS Explain Everything app to record a short message to their families, talking about the best part of their week. Each message must include a selfie, a short text-based message and a voice recording. Then students store each message in their Google Drive. That way, families know where to go to get the latest updates from their students. But best of all, these messages can be included in the students’ PLPs. Short, personal, and emotional goalposts depicting what each student finds most satisfying about their lives as they grow and change.

how to get students to communicate with their families

While Peoples Academy uses the Explain Everything app, any digital app that can combine text, photo and audio can work. Shadow Puppet? Yup! iMovie or WeVideo? Why not! The tool’s almost immaterial, so long as students feel comfortable. The underlying principles here are mindfulness, reflection and repetition.

  • Mindfulness: It takes a steely resolve to carve ten minutes out of a busy school day for one specific activity.
  • Reflection: We know how much students benefit from reflecting on their learning. This is just applying that principle to their emotional selves as well.
  • Repetition: Every Friday. (Snow days notwithstanding.)

Joe previously showed us how his students use Corkulous to create vocab flashcards, and how he uses Google Drive to organize student work. Which is to say: he is rock n’ roll personified.

How do you get students to talk with their families?

How to run a unit across multiple schools

Get organized, then get tech

how to run a unit across schoolsMany of your current — or future — collaborators teach at other schools around the state or world. But when you’ve got a great idea for collaboration, don’t let distance stand in your way. Let’s look at this example from three Vermont schools on how to plan, manage and support one unit run across three different schools.

(Hint: tech helps. A lot.)

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4 ways students are tackling the UN’s Global Goals in Vermont

Global Goals in Vermont

The United Nations has kicked off a movement for the future. They’ve identified 17 goals for sustainability world-wide, and they’ve given those goals to students around the world.

Here in Vermont, a cadre of passionate educators are scaffolding project-based learning around those goals. And #vted students are hard at work, changing the world, one community at a time.

Continue reading “4 ways students are tackling the UN’s Global Goals in Vermont”

Maintaining a teaching team

5 exercises your team can try today

self-analysis and teamingSchool is off to a rollicking start thanks to you and your team’s efforts to build a collaborative culture. You’ve made it successfully through in-service days and the first few weeks of school. Now how are you and your team going to maintain your momentum?

Here are five exercises for maintaining a healthy, happy, respectful and celebratory teaching team.

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Checking in with Stowe & PAML’s peer PLP collaboration

peer PLP collaboration

peer PLP collaborationWhen last we left the students of these two plucky Vermont middle schools, they had managed to connect students and educators via Google Hangout. They’d gotten together to make pizzas and plot the future of personalized learning plans (PLPs). And they’d paired up students as PLP peer collaborators and spent some time reviewing PLPs in pairs.

So we wanted to ask: what’s next? How’s this peer PLP collaboration thing going?

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How to win the VT Tech Bridge Building competition

It takes a combination of flexible pathways and student passion.

student-directed learningPeoples Academy Middle Level 6th graders Noble Beerworth, Josephine Simone, Anna Isselhardt, and Jacob Fougere won big at this year’s  VT Tech’s Bridge Building competition.  They built a bridge that withstood 1,089 pounds of pressure, but the story of how their school helped them get there is equally impressive.

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4 examples of students as partners in school change

Let students help you transform your school

students as partners in school changeCreating sustainable systemic change is hard work. Yet there are readily available, free, renewable resources right in your classroom. Students are embedded experts, creative geniuses, ruthless truthtellers, and intrinsic futurists.

Here are four examples of students as partners in school change: partners in building a makerspace, redesigning PLPs, serving the school community and negotiating curriculum.

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Build personal connections in teacher advisory

“Every student gets greeted at the start of every day.”

build personal connections in teacher advisoryAt Peoples Academy Middle Level, educators have taken the role of teacher advisory, or TA, to a whole new level. They conduct their advisory to build personal connections with their students. As a result, at PAML, advisory has become a very special thing.

But how can you build personal connections in advisory? Let’s find out.

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4 ways to help middle school students organize their tech

“Where did I put that cord? My computer is dead!”

help middle school students get organized with their techHow many times have you heard this in your classroom? So much of middle school is developing systems to stay organized: “How do I get to all these classes? How do I open my locker?” And with the addition of technology: “How do I keep track of my school computer? Which Google Doc is the homework in? ”

Let’s look at 4 ways students can learn independence and grow leadership through the care and organization of technology.

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Tracking proficiencies in Schoology

3 ways Schoology supports sustainable Proficiency-Based Learning

tracking proficiencies in schoologyA learning management system (LMS) can be used to manage classroom workflow, create self-paced differentiated units, and collaborate within or across classrooms and schools.

As teachers in Vermont and elsewhere grapple with how to create proficiency-based learning environments, they are looking for new strategies and routines. Let’s explore some of the features of the Schoology LMS particularly suited to proficiency-based learning.

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How can students reflect on their PLPs?

Students themselves tell the best stories of their learning

how can students reflect on their PLPs?We wish we could hand you the one right way for students to reflect on their personal learning, on a silver platter. It sure would make the rest of the year a lot easier, right? But there are as many ways for students to reflect on their PLPs as there are students, so the best we can do is show up with these SIX SPECTACULAR STUDENT EXAMPLES.

Roll tape!

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Proficiency-based teaching and learning in Vermont: who, why and how

Two examples of implementing proficiency-based scales of learning

proficiency-based teaching and learning in VermontVermont educators and their students are on a journey. Let’s look at how one school is implementing proficiency-based learning in a way that ensures all learners have the opportunity to thrive.

When we clearly articulate learning targets both for and with learners, the end is clear to all and learning can proceed along a progression with multiple opportunities for demonstrating growth and mastery. 

Continue reading “Proficiency-based teaching and learning in Vermont: who, why and how”

Cross-school goal-setting for PLPs

Motivating students around goals by connecting schools

providing support for goal-setting in a PLPMany Vermont students have worked hard this year establishing personal and academic goals as an important part of developing Personal Learning Plans (PLPs).

But when we speak with some of them or listen to teachers reflect on the process and progress, many share the need for additional motivation to keep these goals and their achievement active and present.

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Managing time in blended classrooms

Shifting the way we manage time to personalize learning in a blended space

blended classroomsIn my former professional life, I had the pleasure and the challenge of managing a large high school library media center. An irony of the job, one that made me smile and cringe, was the volume of the bell which rang every 42 minutes to signal transitions. The speaker in my library was broken and for whatever reason none of us could figure out how to turn it down, so at eight 42-minute intervals throughout each day, a jarring, disruptive, and impossible-to-ignore screech blared.

In a space meant for reflection, quiet and focused learning, deep dives into inquiry, this interrupter literally felt like chalkboard nails reminding us our schedule boxed us in. I share this story because in my quest to consider how access to technology can support personalized learning, I have been interested in how pacing and timing play a role in middle level classrooms.

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Exploring identity and current events with Chatterpix

Students tackle politicians’ identities

exploring identity and current events with ChatterpixStudents at Peoples Academy Middle Level in Morrisville, Vermont, are exploring the theme of identity in their humanities class. In part, they’re doing so by “speaking” for presidential candidates, using their research and argumentative writing skills with an app called Chatterpix Kids.

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Vermont Fest 2015

Heading to the slopes for Vermont Fest

Vermont Fest 2015The lifts are open, but the lure of first tracks is not what is prompting educators from across the state to head to Killington this week. Vermont Fest will be in full effect on Thursday and Friday and educators will be eagerly awaiting the opportunity to exchange ideas and practices around PLPs, goal setting, gamification, student-led conferences and the list goes on.

We are especially proud of our partner educators who have been selected to present at this year’s Vermont Fest.

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Serious PD fun with Chatterpix

“Candy apps”, or how to have fun and still learn anyway

how to have fun and still learn anyway

 

During a five minute reflection, if a student is given one minute to find a picture and mark the mouth, then he or she still has four minutes to try to come up with something interesting to reflect about. So this is four minutes more than they may have spent if they were asked to just write, or required to use a tool that they weren’t that interested in.

–Life Legeros

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Establishing behavior expectations in a 1:1

Who decides the acceptable ways to use devices in your school?

establishing behavior expectations in a 1:1
photo: Wes Fryer

You’ve jumped through the hoops, filled out the paperwork, located the three missing chargers and managed to agree on a set of apps and a management system. But what will expectations around tech device usage look like? Will they stay in classrooms? Go home? Hop in a circle and do spoken-word?

Let’s tackle establishing behavior expectations in a 1:1 rollout.

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M is for Minecraft

M is for Minecraft

How to use Minecraft with students

how to use Minecraft with studentsMinecraft is an example of welcoming in student-driven modes of learning, exploration and demonstration of learning. Students find the platform deeply engaging because they can use it to build entire worlds, and many prefer to do their building collaboratively, or outside of school hours. But Minecraft also requires reading, writing and blogging skills, and can have real-world impact.

“Bio,” says one 9th grader. “We were in Bio. And there were some machines sitting there and one was a centrifuge. And I knew what it was because of Minecraft.”

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L is for Learning Management System (LMS)

What can you do with an LMS?

what can you do with an LMSLMS stands for Learning Management System. An LMS is an application for planning, delivering, managing, and assessing a learning process.

Likely, your school or district will choose which commercial LMS package to deploy (Canvas, Haiku, Schoology and Google Classroom are a few), but how you use it is entirely up to you.

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C is for Citizenship (digital of course!)

The ABCs of edtech with the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education

Approaching student digital citizenship from many levels

Our students live in technology-rich worlds, regardless of how much technology they are using in school on a day-to-day basis. Technology has all kinds of awesome educational benefits, but Uncle Ben’s advice to Spiderman is fitting here: “With great power comes great responsibility.” As educators we’re obliged to help students use technology appropriately and safely.

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Using edmodo as an LMS for reading

Students provide evidence of increased engagement with social reading platform

using edmodo as an LMS for reading(Editor’s Note: we asked 5th grade educator Hannah Lindsey to share her experience using the LMS edmodo for a literacy block with students on netbooks. Her blog post is excerpted from a longer reflection prepared for the 2014 AMLE annual conference.)

Does the use of a learning management system impact student engagement and learning outcomes?

Was there a change in learning outcomes and products? Was there a change in student engagement and interest in material, discussions, and each other?

Let’s take a look.

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Becoming an Innovative Teacher

There’s no doubt that teachers understand best the transition to innovative, technology-rich classroom practice, or as our colleague, Joe Speers of Peoples Academy Middle Level, says, “to take students as far as they can go.” Take a listen to his interview with Pat Bradley, bureau chief at WAMC Public Radio in Albany.

 

You may remember Joe Speers from some of his earlier posts for us:

We’re currently searching for more educators like Joe Speers to partner with us as part of our new expansion. Are you up to the challenge of becoming an innovative educator?

 

VT 8th grade class receives EduCast Pioneer award

"An alien named Athena lives on Mars, and goes to school. Athena's house is a spaceship. When she left to go to school, she realized she left something about half way...."
“An alien named Athena lives on Mars, and goes to school. Athena’s house is a spaceship. When she left to go to school, she realized she left something about half way….”

 

Rachel Goodale’s 8th grade science class at Peoples Academy Middle Level was honored yesterday for their series of speed graph Touchcasts by the makers of the app. The EduCast Pioneer award honors outstanding implementations of the Touchcast iOS app in the classroom.

 

How They Did It

Goodale’s students worked in partner-teams, and were given 10 different graphs depicting relative speeds, and 10 different stories explaining them. The students had to figure out which graph went with which story. They were then assigned a graph-and-story combo to act out and, using Touchcast on iPads, one half of the pair filmed while the other acted.

Goodale blogged about how she put the speed graph lesson together here, where you can download a .pdf of the speed graph lesson plan and also find links to the students’ finished works.

Touchcast has created the EduCast channel and award specifically for educators to post Touchcasts they and their students create as part of a classroom curriculum. They’ve also released an exhaustive guide to ways the app can be integrated in education, with lesson plans arranged by content area, tips for getting started, and using iPads in groups.

touchcast_preproduction

 

A huge congratulations to Rachel Goodale and her 8th graders at PAML for being so willing to share their work!

8th grade VT science: interpreting distance over Touchcast

 

"An alien named Athena lives on Mars, and goes to school. Athena's house is a spaceship. When she left to go to school, she realized she left something about half way...."
“An alien named Athena lives on Mars, and goes to school. Athena’s house is a spaceship. When she left to go to school, she realized she left something about half way….”

 

by Rachel Goodale (Peoples Academy Middle Level)

We started out this year with a Physics Unit studying the relationships between time, distance, and speed. Students worked in partners and were given ten different speed graphs to analyze. They were also given ten different stories explaining the graphs.

Students were expected to focus in on features of the graphs such as the slope of the line indicating a faster or slower rate of speed (amount of distance in a given amount of time). They then had to match up the ten stories to the 10 graphs.

The idea was adapted from this Lesson Plan: Interpreting distance / time graphs (pdf)

Enter:  TouchCast!

After the students completed the matching part of the project, they were assigned a single graph to analyze further. Partners were expected to take a picture of their assigned graph: this image was then inserted as a “V-App” into the TouchCast screen, present in one corner of the screen shot at all times.  Now the student who was doing the filming/recording would be able to draw on the graph, explaining the different key features of the graph. The other partner would physically act out what is going on in the graph (running, walking, or stopping as indicated by the graph).

"Tom ran from his home to the bus stop and waited. He realized that he had missed the bus so he walked home."
“Tom ran from his home to the bus stop and waited. He realized that he had missed the bus so he walked home.”

 This technology allows students to capture motion in real time while simultaneously relating this real motion to the information encoded in the two-dimensional graph. If I could spend more time on this project, I would try to provide the students with more space to execute this task.  However, in one hour class, I was able to receive TouchCasts from each of the partner pairs.  I received a lot of positive feedback from students about this class, and am certain that some powerful learning connections were made!

Rachel Goodale teaches 8th grade science at Peoples Academy Middle Level in Morrisville, VT.  Visit her class website here. You can also browse the rest of her class’ distance/time Touchcasts by opening the app and searching on “Here’s How to Read a Speed Graph”.

Blogger of the week: Phoebe Slater

Phoebe Slater teaches 7th grade at one of our partner schools, Peoples Academy Middle Level, over on her blog, Slaterspace, she compares traditional lesson plans with those incorporating iPads:

Using Skitch, students could take a picture of their work and mark up or comment on their or someone else’s writing. Using some other PDF reading tool, students could do the same with the sample pieces provided online. Yes, it is doing the same thing that we did…just with technology. But, perhaps some kids would have been more engaged, or hands-on, or receptive to really taking time to think through the structure and ideas presented before them instead of rushing through.

Read the rest of her iPad entries, Teacher’s Lament I and II over on her blog.