Tag Archives: project based learning

Fraser Valley Ed Camp

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Water ripples

Water Ripples by mcconnell.franklin

I  participated in my first ed camp last weekend at Garibaldi Secondary School in Maple Ridge, hosted by @MrWejr and was so inspired by the people I met; some for the first time, others like @davidwees and @datruss who I’d been learning from all year. There were so many passionate educators/learners there that I’ve needed a few days to digest all the wonderful ideas I came away with. When trying to describe the experience to someone who wasn’t there I had trouble articulating what was so special about it. It wasn’t quite that I heard ideas I had never heard before, after all we share our ideas all the time online, but there was such a great synergy that came from being together, in person, sharing with and challenging each other, knowing we’re all working toward the same goal – doing whatever we can, wherever we are, to enhance learning. The image above came the closest to describing what I felt – many ripples on a pond, all overlapping to create waves.

Tami Oudendijk and I presented in the first session of the day. It was a little intimidating, as it was a first for us in this type of setting, but the format of edcamp is brilliant and we did okay :) We looked at “How we are letting structures (some that we may not even be aware of) drive our students’ educational experience.” and put out the question “How willing are you/is your school to bend the structure for the sake of your students’ learning?” In an ironic and very telling aside, the way edcamp works is anyone who has a topic to present writes their topic on a piece of paper and posts in on a board. There were paper and markers on the table, but when we started writing out our planned question we realized it was too long to fit. We started to rework what we could call our session when we started laughing at ourselves and realized that we were letting unnecessary structure limit what we wanted to learn. We got a second piece of paper. ;)

As our session got underway we heard great examples of interdisciplinary teaching (math and art), student-directed learning and the difficulties that teachers and admin face when trying to make schedules and various groupings of students work. One of the biggest challenges educators had faced when structures were removed and learning became more student-led was how to ensure academic rigour was maintained. It’s difficult to create a system to track individual student progress without having the nature of the assessment drive the type of learning.

One of the concrete ideas that intrigued me most came from David Truss, who suggested the possibility of a digital portfolio (student work, marks, teacher evaluation, personal profile, strengths/weaknesses, interests) that would follow a student throughout his or her academic career and be accessible to all the stakeholders (student, parent, teacher, admin) in that child’s education. Imagine having access to all that history when evaluating where to guide a student next on their learning path.

We also participated in sessions on Knowledge vs Skill presented by Tyler Suzuki Nelson and Different Types of Reporting presented by Remi Collins
The best part of Edcamp Fraser Valley is that it’s not over. As I’ve been writing this post I’ve found Google docs, new blog posts and hundreds of tweets giving me an impression of what happened in other sessions. I’ve been trying to check out K12online and what I’m watching is that much richer because of what I learned at EdcampFV. I’m also feeling overwhelmed by all I’m missing because there are not enough hours in the day! But meeting with all of you gives me the energy to feel that it’s worth the effort and that there is so much we can be doing to take our practices just a little bit further towards where we want them to be. Thank you!

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Student Engagement

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Yesterday, I was lucky enough to attend a teachers’ conference. I attended three workshops each of which addressed a certain aspect of engagement.

Here is a very simplified summary:

The first was a terrific review/assessment activity which was basically a scavenger hunt where the students (in this case workshop participants) were divided into groups of three.

We were then given a team colour and a clue. The answer to our first clue took us out into the hall where we found the letter that had been assigned to our first answer and our colour coded second clue. In order to find each subsequent clue, we had to answer questions correctly to move on.  As we went, we had to write down the letter for each answer. Each group answered their questions in a different order so we were not just following each other from clue to clue. The final question for each team lead us back to the workshop classroom where the instructor evaluated our list of letters to know that we had answered our questions correctly.

This is a great assessment tool. It is fun and interactive for the students while at the same time evaluates learning. Not everything has to be a test!

The second workshop I attended addressed the subject of critical thinking. This could have easily been a full day workshop as we were only really able to touch on the concepts.

In one part of the workshop, we were asked to determine if certain questions or statements posed a critical challenge or if they were simply asking for information or preference. Sometimes the difference is not obvious and what’s more difficult is changing a question or statement to reflect a critical challenge.

Here is a simple example:

Information – How many calories are there in a litre of ice cream?

Preference – What is your favourite flavor of ice cream?

Critical Challenge – Should ice cream be part of a family’s diet?

The definition we were given of a critical challenge is as follows:

“A critical challenge requires a person to assess or judge the merits of possible options in light of relevant factors or criteria.” – Critical Thinking Consortium

The third addressed project based learning.

The presenting teacher had many wonderful ideas. We had the opportunity to attend the workshop in her own classroom so she was able to show us many excellent examples as a way of answering our questions. Her classroom was plastered with student work which she said they were very proud to have displayed and often brought their peers in to see. There were 3D models, posters, headstones, mobiles, and board games. She said she never assigns the same project twice over the years and often lets students choose from 4 or 5 options for presentation. She also ensures that clear guidelines exist in order to fulfill learning outcomes and often student work exceeds learning outcomes. She also lets them have input into the evaluation process and how heavily certain aspects of a project should be weighted.

What I noticed in all of the workshops I attended was that some people picked up on the concept right away while others had a hard time getting their heads around it.

I have a theory and I’m wondering what you think? My theory is that teachers with different learning styles react differently to the information. I would wager that the teachers who had the hardest time getting their heads around these concepts were the “good” students in school who had no trouble sitting still and reading from a textbook or taking notes off the board and assimilating the information. The ones who are already putting some of these techniques into practice are the ones who didn’t get much out of school through reading a textbook or taking notes or the ones who were lucky enough to experience some of these techniques when they themselves were students and know first-hand how much more engaging this type of learning can be.  It can be much less intuitive to know how to teach to a learning style different from your own. Fortunately these types of approaches allow for differentiated instruction and assessment. Here’s a link that supports my theory.

http://www.theinspiredclassroom.com/2011/02/frogs-to-school-and-other-misbehaviors-identifying-the-multiple-intelligences/

I was happy to see a number of the workshops available were addressing many of the themes that seemed to come up in the visioning process that we have been working through in Delta School District.

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