Wicked Problem Project Solved

Wicked Problem 

An Educational Opportunity

Through this project I had an opportunity to take a topic that was disconnected and lacked student engagement and make it more connected and engaging for students, which allowed students to better master the concepts and make stronger connections with the subject matter. In the unit on plate tectonics, volcanoes and earthquakes I like students to be able to understand how the 3 concepts are related. I want them to be able to locate the major earth plate boundaries and what type of boundaries they are. I want them to be able to then see that the major earthquakes and volcanoes of the world are found on those boundaries along with the types of volcanoes and earthquakes. I also want them to see the other major Earth features that are found on plate boundaries. Using Technology Through the use of technology students can be transported to the plate boundaries and where they are actually located around the Earth. Students can actually "see" the volcanoes, locations of earthquakes and land formations relative to plate boundaries. Students work as pairs and used Google Earth to make a virtual tour of the plate boundaries, volcanoes, earthquakes and boundary features. Student tours included the types of boundaries, volcanoes and how the features are formed. Tours also includes the basic information on the major earthquakes that have occurred and how the features have formed. The use of the technology allowed several things for students. Looking at it through the NETS standards the project covered:

1. Students demonstrate a sound understanding of the nature and operation of technology systems. Use technology tools for individual and collaborative writing, communication, and publishing activities to create knowledge products for audiences inside and outside the classroom. 
2. Students use technology to locate, evaluate, and collect information from a variety of sources.

TPACK Sweet Spot

This project hits right in the TPACK Sweet Spot with a balanced combination of pedagogy, content and technology.  The content is not only an Iowa Common Core State Standard and soon to be Next Generation Science Standard but the concepts of earthquakes and volcanoes fascinate many students.  Pedagogy was to provide students with basic background knowledge through podcasts, class discussion and 2 shirt class activities.  At this point students are ready to move on or up the Blooms Taxonomy triangle.  Students have been working toward understanding and applying basic information and through this project they will now work to analyze, evaluate and create.  They will collect data on the worlds largest volcanoes, strongest earthquakes and key land formations like Mt. Everest   They will analyze the data (information) they collect and evaluate how the volcanoes formed, why the earthquakes happened and land formations occurred   Students then create a video tour using Google Earth visiting the volcanoes  earthquake location and land formations describing interesting facts about them and how they were formed. 

The content and pedagogy interact very well in this project.  This project encompasses several different teaching methods.  This is a Project Based Learning activity that involved real world connections, collaboration and real world connections.  What excited me most if the high levels of engagement students will experience.  Rather than being the receptacles where knowledge is deposited, they are learning the content by exploring and inquiry.  I believe that the increased level of engagement will lead to higher student achievement.   They are going to be experiencing the problem differently than in past years and that will lead to better connections and understanding.  Instead of teacher directed learning this will be student led learning through inquiry, evaluation and creation. 

Implementation and Results

Implementation

Implementation of the project went very well.  With great background information given in class students dove into the research part and locating on Google Earth.  While we did encounter a few technical glitches along the way the project went smoothly.  Technical glitches included Google Earth crashes, students saving files to the wrong places and the entire district network crashing in the middle of class one day!  We had planned on the project taking 5 days but we should have planned more time.  We ended up taking a couple extra days to complete the project.  We had the students recording their videos using Camtasia.  Which works well but I was also having them render them to be MP4 files to upload to You Tube which seemed to take forever.  So I switched to having some kids try ScreenCast-O-Matic and this saved their students in MP4 format much quicker.  

Survey Results

Upon completion of the project I gave a survey to my classes.  The results showed the following:

By doing this project how would you rate your understanding of what causes earthquakes and volcanoes?

23% Very High

66% High 

8% Average

3% Low

0% Very Low

By doing this project how would you rate your understanding of the Earth's Plate Boundaries?

55% Very High

34 % High 

8% Average

3% Low

0% Very Low

Did you enjoy this project?

95% Yes

5% No

If you found this project frustrating, what frustrated you?

23% Learning New Technology

5% Research

44% Internet Issues

32% Nothing was Frustrating

If you had your choice of doing projects to learn or listening to leacture and taking notes to learn, what would you select?

91% Projects

7% Notes

2% Neither - I hate learning

I was very happy with the results of this survey and not surprised by the frustration results - I actually expected then to be higher!  Learning new technology and having to research and draw conclusions and evaluate can be frustrating   The best thing was I just kept telling frustrated students to not worry about deadlines and just focus on the learning and creating and we would finish the project when we finished.  I think a little frustration is warranted as that means they are challenged.

Next Years Project   

Changes I will make next year:

Instead of giving them the land formations I will have them select land formations.
or
I will present them with the problem of locating a business in a variety of locations and have them determine which one would be best considering the Earthquake and Volcano risk.

I will also not use Camtasia but rather ScreenCast O Matic.

I will also create a file in Google Earth with the locations stored in it for Special Education students to use so they don't have to find all the locations and focus on research and preparing their scripts.

Conclusion

I am very pleased with how the first year for this project went and I look forward to revising it and continuing with the project next year.

Professional Learning Plan

Professional Learning Plan - Review 

When I look back at my Professional Learning Plan that created in CEP810 I feel like I have come such a long way.

Looking Back at Goal #1: 
Goal 1 - To create a classroom with authentic use of technology that stretches learning, engages students and differentiates instruction for increased student achievement.

Thoughts Today: 
As I reflect on this goal I am very pleased with the progress. I started the school year with a definite plan of how technology in my classroom would look and it unfolded just like I had envisioned and planned. The flipped classroom is going very well and I have been using technology in many new ways to differentiate and stretch the learning of all students. In my analysis of how the first semester has gone I see a need to focus on differentiation for second semester. While second chance testing and differentiation after a summative assessment are going well, I am still not hitting the goal of differentiation of learning on more of a daily basis after formative assessments. This will be my focus second semester.

Looking Back at Goal #2: 
Goal 2 - To increase my knowledge and use of technology applications and resources that are available. To develop a full understanding of TPACK and how it may impact my school district in the coming years.

Thoughts Today: 
While I have always considered myself to be very technologically literate, I am mind boggled by all the additional things I have learned and picked up on since taking CEP810, 811 and 812. These courses really forced me to find the time to explore so many new technologies. Things like Merlot, Classroom 2.0, Glogster, Survey Monkey, Google Hangouts, Camtasia more in depth, Screen Castomatic, Audacity and more. It has been great to take things that I am learning and doing in these class and directly using them and applying them in my classes I teach.  Completing the STAIR Project and the WPP Project really pushed my creativity and methodology to a new level and the results have been increased engagement and student learning.  I have also spent more time reviewing TPACK and the revised version of Bloom's Taxonomy and how technology fits in with that picture.  As our school goes 1:1 and I lead professional development I am excited to present apps and technology to teachers that can reach the highest levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.  My major focus in planning professional development will be on pedagogy and technology guided by the TPACK model and content driven by Common Core State Standards.

Other Thoughts:
I also attended a one day workshop this fall on using Google and all its capabilities.  Through all these classes a side affect has been a large increase in my Professional Learning Network which has given me inspiration for classroom activities.

Professional Learning Network Before CEP810

Professional Learning Network After CEP812

Future:
Between now and next summer I plan to continue to increase my knowledge of available technologies by continuing to utilize the MACUL space, Classroom 2.0, Twitter and Merlot to interact with other professionals and find ideas and inspiration.  I also want to better utilized flipped classroom formative assessments to employ differentiation in my classroom.   I want to also keep my education blog better updated and maybe start a 3rd blog that is only about ways to use technology that I can push out to those who are attending my professional development workshops and a place where I can inspire other professionals.  I also enjoyed the STAIR Project and WPP Project and even though I am not in class anymore I intend to create another STAIR and I want to approach a unit from the WPP perspective second semester.

Group Leadership Project CEP 812

Group Leadership Project Educreations Tutorial Our group each made their own individual videos using a tool of their choosing and then the final video was assembled using Camtasia. I also used Camtasia to record my portion of the video. I have been using Camtasia for over a year to create my podcast for my students and love the capabilities. At first it might be a little complicated to use but once you get the basics it is a breeze to record audio, video and both. I have been using it more and more all the time. Great for combining video clips into one video for my students or for recording videos that are not iPad compatible and making them compatible. My initial plan was to teach people how to use Educreations by recording a video in Educreations. Great thought until I realized that recording in Educareations does not record all the buttons and tools of Educreations. So I went through the tutotial and took screenshots of all the steps and then made the video in Camtasia. I also learned more about recording audio and video in Camtasia. In doing a project like this again I am not sure I would do much differently. I might try and make sure that each person involved had the same program to utilize for making their video. There is a part of me that thinks a tutorial like this would be easier with one person but as the viewer of a tutorial I like the different commentators. I think the project went well and I had a great group to work with. They gave me some new ideas about how to use Educreations as well.

PART D - Findings and Implications

WPP Part D - Findings and Implications

Implementation:

The project launched Monday without a hitch.  The students took very well to locating land formations, earthquakes and volcanoes.  They were quick to get busy researching what caused all these formations as well.  They did very well dividing up duties with their partners as well.  Things seemed to get going well.  There were a couple issues the first day with students not saving their files to the correct locations on the school server but they were ironed out.  We have decided to extend the deadline for the project a couple days to make sure they are completing a quality project and not feeling rushed.

As I have been observing and working with students I have enjoyed listening to their conversations about plate boundaries, locations of countries and different types of volcanoes and earthquakes.  Just hearing what they are talking about and researching I am extremely confident that students are engaged and learning more than they ever had about Earth's plates and boundaries, earthquakes and volcanoes.  They are also working on public speaking skills with their narration, writing in their story boards, collaboration skills with their partners and geography!

Future Projects:

In the future I would approach this project the exact same way, lots and lots of preparation on my part.  When you read about projects vs. project based learning this project is really meeting the definition of project based learning and I know it is not a fluff project, there is authentic learning taking place.  People would benefit from knowing that projects like this require a great deal of prep and practice by the teacher.  You actually have to walk through he project as if you were the student and write the instructions as if they were meant for someone who had no idea how to use the technology.  Another key was that I made a sample tour to model the project for the students.   The sample I made for the kids was really key for inspiring kids to extended to high levels for their project.  This project will most definitely be repeated in the future.  One change that could be made would be to create a pre-made folder with all the tour locations in it so students didn't have to spend time locating them they would just need to research things about them, the plate boundaries that made that feature, etc.  This would save some time on the project and still meet the objectives of the project.

Pictures of Students Working:

Mobile Learning

Mobile Learning

Classroom 2.0 - I found this web site to be very interesting.  I really liked the groups I was able to join and I particularly liked the Google Apps in Education group.  There are several great discussions going on and lots of great tips and secrets to success.  Very easy to tweet out things that I find to my Professional Learning Network as well.  I am also adding people I found on Classroom 2.0 to my PLN on Twitter.  I really like this site and didn't even know it existed.  I am always looking for ways to connect to more educators and this will be a great resource.

Poll Everywhere - I have been using Poll Everywhere for a couple years.  I really like how easy it is to use and kids love to be able to use their cell phones to text the answers.  I actually stopped using Poll Everywhere last year when I really got hooked on Google Forms for formative quizzes and became more vested into using Moodle.  I gave a Poll Everywhere survey over cancer the other day in class and the kids loved using that format.  While I still think intend to keep with Google Forms and Moodle I really need to tap the capabilities of using Poll Everywhere for other things.  I can see this as a bell ringer activity or a way to get to know kids better through different types of questions.  There is always a concern about students who do not have cell phones to text which is why I like that the survey can be given with a web link so I could poll students giving them a web link they can access on their iPads.