So often as teachers we use the term "Cooperative Learning" to describe what is actually "Cooperative Practicing" or "Cooperative Reviewing", and while I am convinced that some learning does actually take place in those situations, they aren't often used to learn NEW information. I am here to tell you that new information can be learned through cooperative learning.
I don't know if it is the "flipped teacher" in me or if it is just how I am. I do not subscribe to the "Sage on the Stage" type of teaching. My students RARELY (almost never) sit and get from me. I feel like it doesn't mean anything to them if they are just taking notes while I am jabbering on. I want my students to really "get" the content, and I find that traditional classroom lectures just don't do that. Typically, my students learn information from videos that I create and that they watch at home. That way they can stop and rewind, they can watch where ever and when ever it works for them, and they don't have to deal with the interruptions that typically occur with students in a typical high school classroom.
Sometimes, though, I want students to actually learn the information with my presence. For example, today, my students were learning Interrogative Adjectives (the ways of saying "which"). We had already learned the demonstrative adjectives (they ways of saying "this/that/these/those"). I chose an engaging way for them to use deductive reasoning to figure out the usage rules for this grammar point.
Here goes:
Step 1: Students are in groups and each group gets a stack of little pieces of paper and a basket for the middle of the group. Each student takes several of the pieces of paper.
Step 2: I created a slideshow of the grammar point being used. For this grammar point, it was a story of a family at the mall shopping for Grandma's birthday. Each slide had a question and answer part of the conversation. For example, one slide might say "WHICH scarves would Grandma prefer? --I think she would like these scarves". I had the words that I wanted them to focus on in a different color.
Step 3: I went slide by slide and for each slide and had them write a comment about the word that I had in a different color. I coached them by saying it can be what comes to mind. What does this mean in English, how is it used, what do you notice about pronunciation? Each student (without talking) writes their comment on a piece of paper, then puts it in the basket.
Step 4: We did this for each page of the slide show.
Step 5: I had one person be the "authority". This person grabbed their textbook and turned to the page that explained the grammar point.
Step 6: When we finish with the slides. I have them mix up the papers. Then, students take turns reading one paper at a time. The "authority" decides if the statement on the paper was supported by the textbook or not and the students create two stacks of paper. One stack for the statements that agree with the book, another stack for those that do not.
Step 7: Using Padlet I have each group post something from their "Good Stack". Padlet allows the class to see sentences on the SmartBoard, so as students are writing, I would say No Repeats, so that they would have to come up with a list of usage rules.
Step 8: Students wrote down what showed up on the board onto notes. I had them discuss with their groups what would be good things to write down.
Step 9: As a final step, I had the "Authority" read through the information from the book and make sure that everyone covered all of what was important about this topic.
I had one class that had a little extra time, so I as an additional step, I had them post an example sentence that wasn't from the textbook or from my examples, to show that they could use the grammar point.
This is a great way to put students in charge of their own learning.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Presentations with a Purpose
I run a very project-based classroom. In World Language classes, we want our students to use the language, and what better way to do that than by having them create a narrated slideshow. There are oodles of programs that can serve this purpose from PowerPoint to IMovie. I have used many different programs, and I often am teaching the technology as I am teaching the project. I feel that it is important to expose high school students to different technology. As they continue in their educational careers, they will be expected to do many different presentations and I want them to be comfortable with using more than just Power Point.
That being said, my Level 2 students always do a project to practice the two different past tenses (passé composé and imparfait). I have them pick three photographs from their childhood and tell a story about that photograph. When telling the story, they must know the proper situation for which each tense is used. The kids enjoy re-telling about their past and showing off how cute they were when they were kids, and I enjoy getting to know them a little better.
Because I have so many students and so little time, in-class presentations are out of the question. This means that I need a program on which students can narrate over a still image. I have used PhotoStory, and for the past two years, I have used a program called Yodio. This year, however, I couldn't decide which program to have them use, so I did something crazy, I gave them a choice.
I created a How-To Document that included directions and a tutorial for four different programs, and I let them choose the program that they preferred. I gave them three days in front of computers (I must also mention that they have a simultaneous vocabulary practice assignment at the same time, and some students chose to use the computers to do the online versions of that assignment, and to do the narrated slideshow at home.) My four suggested programs: PowerPoint, PhotoStory, IMovie and Yodio. I can't believe that I forgot to include Windows Movie Maker, so when I do this again, I will add that program to the list.
This was incredibly successful this year. I had so few technical problems. I was amazed. We do a lot of "pre-work" on the writing process of the presentations over the course of two chapters, so students did a great job. For example, when we first learned the imparfait, I had them submit the three photos either using Google Docs or OneDrive. Along with each photo they used the imparfait to write three sentences about the picture. I used this as a time to teach the usage rules for the imparfait. Then as we progressed, I had them elaborate more on the photographs, and tell a story about the photograph. In this step, they incorporated the passé composé. By submitting electronically, I could easily edit or help to edit their work in progress. Then, when it came time to "tell" the story, most of the work had been done. All that they needed to do before recording was add transition words and make corrections. They recorded using their favorite program...and DONE! As my daughter's kindergarten teacher would say, "Easy Peasy Lemon Squeasy!"
That being said, my Level 2 students always do a project to practice the two different past tenses (passé composé and imparfait). I have them pick three photographs from their childhood and tell a story about that photograph. When telling the story, they must know the proper situation for which each tense is used. The kids enjoy re-telling about their past and showing off how cute they were when they were kids, and I enjoy getting to know them a little better.
Because I have so many students and so little time, in-class presentations are out of the question. This means that I need a program on which students can narrate over a still image. I have used PhotoStory, and for the past two years, I have used a program called Yodio. This year, however, I couldn't decide which program to have them use, so I did something crazy, I gave them a choice.
I created a How-To Document that included directions and a tutorial for four different programs, and I let them choose the program that they preferred. I gave them three days in front of computers (I must also mention that they have a simultaneous vocabulary practice assignment at the same time, and some students chose to use the computers to do the online versions of that assignment, and to do the narrated slideshow at home.) My four suggested programs: PowerPoint, PhotoStory, IMovie and Yodio. I can't believe that I forgot to include Windows Movie Maker, so when I do this again, I will add that program to the list.
This was incredibly successful this year. I had so few technical problems. I was amazed. We do a lot of "pre-work" on the writing process of the presentations over the course of two chapters, so students did a great job. For example, when we first learned the imparfait, I had them submit the three photos either using Google Docs or OneDrive. Along with each photo they used the imparfait to write three sentences about the picture. I used this as a time to teach the usage rules for the imparfait. Then as we progressed, I had them elaborate more on the photographs, and tell a story about the photograph. In this step, they incorporated the passé composé. By submitting electronically, I could easily edit or help to edit their work in progress. Then, when it came time to "tell" the story, most of the work had been done. All that they needed to do before recording was add transition words and make corrections. They recorded using their favorite program...and DONE! As my daughter's kindergarten teacher would say, "Easy Peasy Lemon Squeasy!"
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Teach with Student-Created Videos, what?
A few weeks ago we came back from Spring Break, and I wanted to take a few days to stop and review. Second semester of French 1 is very verb heavy, so before we learned more irregular verbs, I thought it would be good for everyone if we took some time to review what we had already learned. I have always been a big fan of jig-saws, where I put different groups in-charge of different topics, they research, write down some notes, then I send one person from each group to another group to share what their group came up with, and I continue mixing up groups until all groups have been exposed to at least one person from each group. But, this year I wanted to somehow involve technology to review verbs, and I came up with, what I think, is an awesome use for IPads. Why not use the IPads to create videos to teach each other?
To start off, I divided students into their cooperative learning groups that they would have for the quarter. (If you've read any of my posts before, I strongly believe that there are benefits in cooperative learning, and I always have students work in the same group, that I strategically create, for the length of a unit.) Since these were new groups, I spent some time doing a team building exercise to help them decide on their group name, but I will have to save that for another post. I handed all students a packet that had verb charts for all of the categories of verbs that we had learned, and all of the irregular verbs that we had learned so far this year. Along with each verb chart was space for three sentences that use that verb. I assigned each group a section of the packet.
The groups had some time to research their assigned verb(s) to correctly complete the verb chart and to write their example sentences. During this work time, I stressed their group rolls. The time keeper needed to be letting the group know how much time there was left, researcher was looking up informaton, the secretary was writing their groups information on white boards, and the "patron", was organizing everything. I was walking around checking for errors, and asking about pronunciation.
After groups had finished with their research, it was time to teach! Each group grabbed an IPad and taught the information that they had written on their white boards. I had told the students that they could use up to five white boards (because that is all I had), and someone held the IPad and recorded while someone else explained the information on a white board that someone else was holding. They were so engaged!! I had them use the camera on the IPad to record and just kept the footage in the camera roll. Since multiple classes were doing this, I had another class use IMovie to produce the video-lesson. Originally, I had wanted to use the app Educreations, but the app wasn't on the IPads, yet.
The next day, the students returned to their groups and I handed each group a different group's IPad. They set the IPad up in their group, pressed play and took notes as they watched all of the other group's videos. They passed around the IPads until they were able to complete the entire verb packet, which they keep in their binder for the entire quarter so that they can use it as a reference.
As in all cooperative learning, there are problems that occur. Inevitably, groups made mistakes that I didn't catch before the groups created their video. There are always a few bright students who will catch those mistakes, and let me know. In those cases, I kept a running list of mistakes on the board and we addressed them after everyone had completed their packet. With some videos, as I was handing a group another IPad that had a video with a mistake, I would tell them, "There is a mistake with this one, let me know if you can figure out what it is", and I would help the group out as they were watching the video. Also, there were some groups that didn't finish creating their entire video, in that case, when groups watched the incomplete video, as a group they would have to work together to come up with the missed-information.
I loved this activity. It moved fast because I kept everything to a time limit and I had a count-down timer on the Smartboard, as they were working. The end result was valuable, now students have a great resource in their binder. The students ended up learning so well from each other and I am amazed at how well they know their verbs. Since I have at least four "authorities" for each verb that we learned, when I ask the class, what a certain verb means, at least four people know and can help the others out. Best of all, they had so much fun creating the videos. I was thrilled to walk around and watch the creativity as they were writing these silly sentences to show their verbs and deciding on the best way to record their information. Yep, this activity is a keeper!
To start off, I divided students into their cooperative learning groups that they would have for the quarter. (If you've read any of my posts before, I strongly believe that there are benefits in cooperative learning, and I always have students work in the same group, that I strategically create, for the length of a unit.) Since these were new groups, I spent some time doing a team building exercise to help them decide on their group name, but I will have to save that for another post. I handed all students a packet that had verb charts for all of the categories of verbs that we had learned, and all of the irregular verbs that we had learned so far this year. Along with each verb chart was space for three sentences that use that verb. I assigned each group a section of the packet.
The groups had some time to research their assigned verb(s) to correctly complete the verb chart and to write their example sentences. During this work time, I stressed their group rolls. The time keeper needed to be letting the group know how much time there was left, researcher was looking up informaton, the secretary was writing their groups information on white boards, and the "patron", was organizing everything. I was walking around checking for errors, and asking about pronunciation.
After groups had finished with their research, it was time to teach! Each group grabbed an IPad and taught the information that they had written on their white boards. I had told the students that they could use up to five white boards (because that is all I had), and someone held the IPad and recorded while someone else explained the information on a white board that someone else was holding. They were so engaged!! I had them use the camera on the IPad to record and just kept the footage in the camera roll. Since multiple classes were doing this, I had another class use IMovie to produce the video-lesson. Originally, I had wanted to use the app Educreations, but the app wasn't on the IPads, yet.
The next day, the students returned to their groups and I handed each group a different group's IPad. They set the IPad up in their group, pressed play and took notes as they watched all of the other group's videos. They passed around the IPads until they were able to complete the entire verb packet, which they keep in their binder for the entire quarter so that they can use it as a reference.
As in all cooperative learning, there are problems that occur. Inevitably, groups made mistakes that I didn't catch before the groups created their video. There are always a few bright students who will catch those mistakes, and let me know. In those cases, I kept a running list of mistakes on the board and we addressed them after everyone had completed their packet. With some videos, as I was handing a group another IPad that had a video with a mistake, I would tell them, "There is a mistake with this one, let me know if you can figure out what it is", and I would help the group out as they were watching the video. Also, there were some groups that didn't finish creating their entire video, in that case, when groups watched the incomplete video, as a group they would have to work together to come up with the missed-information.
I loved this activity. It moved fast because I kept everything to a time limit and I had a count-down timer on the Smartboard, as they were working. The end result was valuable, now students have a great resource in their binder. The students ended up learning so well from each other and I am amazed at how well they know their verbs. Since I have at least four "authorities" for each verb that we learned, when I ask the class, what a certain verb means, at least four people know and can help the others out. Best of all, they had so much fun creating the videos. I was thrilled to walk around and watch the creativity as they were writing these silly sentences to show their verbs and deciding on the best way to record their information. Yep, this activity is a keeper!
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