How Zombies Saved My School Year

My first week of school was pretty disappointing for me.  I watched my colleagues to exciting things like Goosechase.com and rewriting hip-hop songs about reading and creating a viral video.  The teachers I follow on Twitter were all overjoyed about the magic that is the beginning of the school year.  I had great ideas.  I had participated in hours of professional development on technology integration and Writer's Workshop.  I did my own research as well hoping to find some tips on implementing personalized learning and standard based grading.  I was educated, trained and prime for my own magic.

But after a few staff meetings, PLC meetings and a grade level meeting I realized that my first week was not going to magical.  It was going to be boring and frustrating.  My school had to schedule STAR testing early in the year to free up computer labs and Chromebooks for real instruction and that seemed like a noble idea at the time.  The problem came when we realized that someone (don't you love it when they say "someone" and you know that means you) will have to teach the students how to change their passwords.  "Hey, while you're at it - have them sign up for all of our Google Classroom accounts - and their Remind accounts now that I think of it".   I wanted to be the good sport and honestly I had forgotten the pain of teaching 30 students Chromebook procedures.  My students from last year came so far that I could just throw out an app and they'd figure it out and I know these kids will grow the same way - maybe faster because I've grown.  Yet, on those first few days I found myself grumpy, cranky and impatient.  This was not the magical first week I wanted - or that 6th grades venturing to middle school the first time deserved.

So,  I had to get quiet and reevaluate.  The good news was that the students were flying around the chromebook like experts by Friday - the bad news is they hadn't really learned much else.  I pulled up my Social Studies lesson plans and began to review them - ugh - The 5 Themes of Geography Loupe Collage - BORING! So I  started Googling for ideas and playing around with apps.  I stumbled across a lesson where students had to determine the survivability of a given location in the event of a zombie apocolypse using the 5 themes of Geography.  The teacher had provided the handout for free on Google and I totally ripped it off, added to it and edited for my purposes and planned on implemented it the next week.  *I jokingly say, I've never had an original thought in my life - I beg, borrow and steal most ideas I use in my classroom*  I always give credit when I can - if this is your lesson please let me know so I can give you credit and thank you for sharing!*

 The kids were stoked, they were engaged, they collaborated and they presented.  *sigh - I found my happy place once again and it was all thanks to zombies!

And since I ripped the whole thing off- here's my version!  Zombie Geography Lesson 

A Rubric for Assessing 21st Century Life Skills

There is a lot of talk about ensuring students receive instruction based on 21st Century Skills.  The 21st Century Skills are a collection of skills that educators and business leaders have determined students need to be successful in the 21st century. Below is an illustration from P21 - the coalition of educators and business leader who developed the framework.

P21 

Teachers have long been aware of their  responsiblity for the core subjects (green), the technology skills (purple) and we're beginning to do better on the Innovation skills (orange).

The part that is difficult to teach, measure and assess are the life skills (red).  The life skills that are outlined here are flexibility, self-directedness, time management and working well with others.  These are easy for teachers to observe but very difficult to assess and help students develop strong 21st Century Life Skills.  As a teacher, I know their weaknesses in flexibility and self-directedness directly impacts their learning but I have struggled with the best way to make students aware. Telling them over and over again has not worked for 20 years so this year - the 21st year - I'm trying something different.

I've designed a rubric to assess students' 21st Century life skills. The assessment will take place twice a quarter in a sit down conference with me - much like a reading or writing conference that students are used to doing anyway.  My hope is to be very good at documenting strengths and deficiencies in Power School, Class Dojo and in their conference notebooks on Evernote.  My goal is to use the documentation to drive a discussion with each student regarding their strengths and areas of growth to make them aware of how these untangible foggy skills really do impact their learning.

 I've included the rubric below and would welcome any comments or feedback on the instrument or the approach!

21st Century Life Skill	4	3	2	1
Accept direction and constructive feedback effectively.	Always listens and follows direction. Responds politely to redirection. Seeks feedback on how to improve work.	Listens and follows directions most of the time. Takes redirection without argument. Accepts feedback and uses it to improve.	Sometimes argues with teacher when being redirecteds. Sometimes follows instruction. Sometimes accepts feedback for improvement.	Repeatedly argues when redirected. Rarely seeks feedback on how to improve grades.
Manage time and meet deadline	Always meets deadlines and turns in assignments on time	Meets most deadlines.	Regularly misses deadlines.	Misses most deadlines.
Setting and Working towards goals	Works with teacher to set and meet goals. Seeks out guidance when falling behind.	Meets goals set for them and accepts offered help when teacher notices student is behind.	Misses goals that have been set by student or teacher.	Misses most goals and does not seek help in reaching them.
Be a self directed learner	Always stays on task. Seeks out ways to expand on what they've learned. Makes connections from topics in class to the world around them.	Stays on task most of time. Makes connections when presented to them. Ask thoughtful questions regarding the content.	If off task sometimes. Completes minimum assignment with no connections made or questions asked.	Repeatedly off task and completes little work independently.
Interact effectively with others	Always gets along well with classmates. Solves problems effectively and quickly. Shows tolerance for others' ideas and points of view.	Gets along with others most of the time. Accepts teacher's or counselor's advice on solving problems. Tries to understand other's points of view.	Sometimes has difficulty working with others and does not work with classmates or teacher to solve the issue effectively.	Does not work well in cooperative groups.
Be productive	Always produces high quality work.	Produces high quality work most of time.	Sometimes produces high quality work.	Rarely produces high quality work.
Leadership and responsibility	Always stands up for what is right. Takes responsibility for his/her actions.	Takes responsibility most of the time and usually stands up for what is right.	Sometimes accepts responsibility for his/her actions.	Rarely accepts responsibilty for his/her actions and often blames others for his/her mistakes.

Top 10 from P19

10.  Food, Fabulous Food!  We were fed well and often!  Thanks ITF's!

9.  Badges - I love using badges with kids and enjoyed earning the displaying my badges!

8. Google Moments - Couldn't get enough of these!  My fav was Moveit!  Random wallsits and wiggling the right side of my body never gets old!

 

7. WonderBlogs!  - great way to record thinking... and it's fun to say!

6. Lipsyncing! Barenaked Ladies style...well sorta! 

5.  Learning....it's Personal. Seriously, this is the "thing" I'm most interested in implementing in my room.  Haven't found many tools with adaptive content already built in for ELA but I'm sure it's coming!  #tappingfoot

4.  If This/Then That makes me more effecient...and I totally need that.  Social networking spreads us thin but Twitter is so valuable in my learning as a teacher that I can't afford to miss some important Tweets. Thanks ITF's!  

3.  Lots of time to play!...ahem work!  Seriously, it's so stressful learning new things and not having time to use them!  Thanks ITF's. 

2.  Minecraft makes me dizzy but I don't wanna stop!  

1.  NEW FRIENDS!  The best part of Pinnacle and being a teacher in Gaston County Schools are the wonderful people we get to work with.  Thanks all!  

3....2....1...Go!

Pinnacle 19 - Year 2 - Day 1

3 things I found out.

1.  Lots of new Chromebooks for GCS Schools!  

2.  There's a model called the 4C's - Critical Thinking, Creativity, Collaboration and Communication

3. Personlized intstruction is hard and we have to collaborate! 

2 Interesting things

1. Super Fizz-bomb formulas can help me personalize instruction.

2.  Green Screens can be made out of Pizza boxes with puppets as the players! 

1 Question

What will personalized learning look like in my classroom?