A Teachable Moment for Them and One For Me.

Today (September 21) is my birthday.  This year I am lucky, because it falls on a weekend day (school week in Kuwait runs Sunday-Thursday).  Amanda has some things planned for the day, but, mostly, I just want to relax.  I still have some work I want to get to, or September 22 will be terribly busy.

Yesterday, I came outside to greet my grade eights as I do every day.  We are still practicing routines and fulfilling expectations.  One of my expectations is that before class begins they line up outside my door in a single-file line and they are quiet.  This helps to calm down the noise before the enter the room, and it helps to start the class on the right foot.  This group was a much talked about group last year, because of the many behaviour and discipline issues that came up.  I only had them for homeroom, so I never really saw much of that.  I'll be honest, before this year began I figured they would still be a tough group.

I was wrong.  They are great kids, and they crave structure and routine.  To that effect, we had to practice entering the classroom a couple of times yesterday.  In both instances one or more students were far too chatty.  I was getting in a huff by the time I had everyone seated.  I lectured them on the importance of our routines, and then I had them take out their books to start on the bell work.  Many stared at me dumbfounded, and I felt like I had accidently brought the wrong class inside.  I asked again, and they slowly started to take out their materials.

I turned to the Smart Board and I drew the screen shade down, so that they could read the instructions.  We were going to do a rapid writing assignment.  I turned around to explain this, and I was met with every single student standing and facing me.  It was like something from Children of the Corn.  And then they sang.  "Happy birthday," came at me in force.

I felt low.  I just berated them for not following rules and expectations, and now they are happily wishing me a happy birthday.  They are kids, they do get excited, and I need to remember that.  I even got a sweet card from one student, and a bottle of cologne from another.  Unfortunately, I don't wear cologne and it is a staple for teacher gifts in Kuwait.  I have five or so bottles stashed somewhere.

As an aside: My grade 8s love the crafting folders.  I already have one student who is a Master Noun Navigator, and several others who are close.  The image is the badge that they receive on Edmodo.

Great TED Video

I just stumbled on this great TED talk by Paul Anderson, and how he added gaming elements to his classroom.  I've already planned for some of his ideas (also some of Lee Sheldon's), so I'm excited to start the year and see how it all turns out.

Crafting - Part Two

We've been back in Kuwait for a couple pf days now, and Amanda and I are already busy getting our classrooms and plans together.  I'm lucky enough to be teaching in a brand new room (albeit a portable), so it is a blank canvas.  They are still working on the room, though, so I'll have to wait a bit longer to get some of my things set up.

I am, however, preparing and laminating a lot of material for the first few days (and for the rest of the year, really).  I'm creating a "Crafting Corner" where students will be able to practice certain skills.  I will post a skill tree every few weeks, so the students can see all of the skills/steps they will be working on.  When they finish one step (worksheet, activity, etc) they can move on to the next.  The final step is a short written test that covers all areas of that skill (verb tenses for instance).  The students that complete all steps and get 80% or higher on the final test will be awarded a badge on Edmodo.  However, if the students get below 80% they will not be awarded a badge.  Instead, they are able to retake the test as many times as they want until they do.  I want this to be a positive experience, and I want to get them interested in accruing and practicing these skills.  The crafting will take place outside of regular lessons, and I will let them take the sheets home (not the test, though).  I know that a lot of my students love getting badges, stickers, or any other kind of recognition (yes even those moody 9s and 10s), so I foresee a lot of them getting behind this.  The ones that aren't interested will not be forced to do it, but I imagine they will consider it when they see the rewards and higher marks their friends get from practicing their skills.  I've thrown two examples of these skill crafting trees up on Google Documents, so click here if you are interested in using something like them.

Time to play a little Xbox before hitting the sack.

Guilds!

The Guild web series

A lot of the traditional teaching methods in Kuwait and South Korea revolve around the students sitting alone at their desk and facing the chalk or Smart board as a teacher lectures. I was guilty of this when working in Incheon, South Korea, because I had no teacher training. I knew it wasn't the best approach, but I didn't know how to adapt my teaching.

Since moving to Kuwait, I've noticed that my students have a lot of trouble working in groups. They have little prior experience with group work and they have rarely been held accountable for their own learning. I struggled with group work this year. It drained me trying to keep them on task. I had many failures, but many successes too. My grade 9s initially struggled when practicing their Shakespeare scenes, but with diligence from the ESL support teacher and myself the final products were very good.

This upcoming year I want to put more of a focus on group work. I think kids teaching each other is a fantastic way to solidify content, especially for students who are ESL and don't always understand the conversations in the class. To that effect I plan on weaving the groups into the class narrative through the guild moniker.

The guilds in my classroom will be organized first according the stream (I have academic students and applied students - an Ontario distinction) and second according to personality. Obviously some of the students will be moved around throughout the year as issues crop up, but I will try and keep the guilds intact as long as I can.  The notion of having them working for a specific guild gives each member a sense of community and cooperation from the outset, and it will fuel their desire to compete against other guilds.

In the guild format, group participation and accountability will be promoted throughout the year. I want the students to enjoy learning in that environment and I want them to see the benefits. One of the ways I plan on doing this is by having students create things like flags/symbols for their guild and having a point system that encourages them to help each other. I have a lot more planned, and a lot more I'm still planning, but I think that focusing on group work conventions from the get-go will help set the stage for the year.  

Behaviour Points Using Class Dojo

In a previous post, I wrote about how the students will be graded in my classroom next year.  I touched on the idea of XP, and how those experience points will essentially be their marks on assignments while the levels they achieve will be their grades.  In this post I am going to write about another point system I will be introducing next year: Behaviour Points.

In short, I'll call these points BPs.  Teachers all over the world use a behaviour management system that revolves around points and rewards.  I'm not reinventing the wheel by any means, but I will be integrating this management system into my class narrative and theme.

The Class Dojo homepage.

This past year I stumbled onto the classroom management system Class Dojo, and it was a stress-saver.  I implemented it into my grade 8 class in November, and they immediately loved it.  Their system is an avatar based reward and consequence system.  I can assign points based on defined actions (1 positive point for raising a hand or 1 negative point for coming in late).  During every class I would put the website up on the interactive whiteboard, so that students always knew where they were in terms of points.  I set up a system where if they got 10 points in a week they would get to choose a reward like sitting in the teacher's chair or eating in class.  If the entire class earned 75% positive in the course of a week we had a whole class reward like playing soccer for 20 minutes or having free personal activity time.  Only the kids with -1 or higher were allowed to participate in the whole class rewards.  This system worked wonders in my class, as I had kids invested in the game nature of the program.  They wanted to earn points, win the week.  Add to that the fact that kids can create their own avatars and I can e-mail parents beautiful behaviour reports. It is a fantastic free classroom management tool that I suggest every teacher try out.

I will be using Class Dojo next year, but I will be changing how I use it.  This year I reset the points each week, so that the students had a fresh start.  Next year I will use it more as a currency system.  Students will earn positive BPs for things like raising hands, completing homework, staying on task, helping others, etc.  They will earn negative BPs (and therefore lose points) for things like being late to class, not doing homework, speaking out, and using Arabic in class (a problem in a bilingual school, as the students have been caught saying some nasty things - also we are trying to promote their development of English skills).

An example of the point distribution for my grade eights.
Alaa has earned her reward!

At any time students will be able to spend their BPs on 'loot.'  For instance, 5BP would buy a student a pencil or pen, 10BP no homework for one night, 15BP a treat, 35BP 15 minutes of quiet free time, etc.  100BP would buy a student soccer for 25 minutes.  Obviously soccer costs a lot of points and an individual student would have to save for an entire semester to earn something like that.  However, I want to promote cooperation and group work.  Since the students will already be in guilds (groups) I will allow them to combine or donate points to each other in order to claim loot.  If Ahmed doesn't have a pencil and he has no BP left, he can ask Tom if he can spare 5BP from his cache of 30BP.  In order to get the soccer reward, my students will have to work together to combine their points.

As of right now, Class Dojo doesn't seem to allow for erasing a particular student's points (as in spending them on a reward), so I hope that they allow this in the future.  If not I'm sure I can figure out a work around to it.  I will be using Class Dojo simply because it is a clean and easy way to manage and track my students' behaviour.

Crafting...as motivation to practice

I've read a lot over the last year about trying to get kids to continue their learning after they've left school for the day, week, or year.  It is an especially difficult problem here in Kuwait, as a lot of the families that I have interacted with seem to think that learning stops when the kid leaves school and time at the house is meant for being with family.  I'm not knocking family here, but if a child doesn't continue to work on the learned skills at home than they will quickly become stagnant and useless to them.  The trick, I suppose, is getting that student to want to keep learning.  Sometimes that type of thinking seems like a lot of alchemy, but as educators we have to at least try.

So, my solution for next year comes in a package I'm calling crafting.  I am not the first person to think of this term or idea as it relates to education (and gamfiication of education), but I honestly can't remember all of the places I've seen it mentioned.  I'm not taking sole credit for the concept, let's put it that way.

Since my grade eight class is themed around medieval fantasy, I thought that calling the motivated extra-learning system crafting was a good place to start.  Simply speaking, I'm going to keep a few folders of extra work based on concepts and skills we've developed in class.  Students can choose to try these extra bits of work without the fear of failure, but with the hope of achievement.

As an example, let's say that we've worked on using present and present progressive verbs in class.  I will select around 10 pieces of bonus work based on present verb tense that the students can do at their leisure.  If they finish class work early or if they want to have some extra practice over the weekend, the students can choose to take on these extra challenges.  Every one they complete moves them closer to becoming a MASTER CRAFTER in that particular area.  Once they have finished, with correct answers, the ten practice sheets, they can try to take the Master Crafter challenge quiz.  If they get 90-100% on it than they will earn the Master Present Tense Verb (or just Master PTV) achievement badge.  They can keep retrying the test until they do reach the pass threshold.

From my perspective they are solidifying core concepts, and from their perspective they are achieving recognition for being very good at something.  I would, of course, have a variety of these crafting categories based on the learning we do in class.  If they get a hold of 5 badges, I might set up another reward.  It is a bit of intrinsic and a bit of extrinsic.  The students will want the badges, but a lot of that desire comes from achieving in the eyes of their peers.  An award certificate would be another great way to show their achievement.  My soon-to-be wife has made some awesome end of the year ones for her grade 2s (and for K-6).  She's got them on sale now on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Any other ideas for this sort of system?  Any thoughts about the Themed Year in general?  Leave a comment!

Level Up!

Scene from Scott Pilgrim

I've spoken a bit about my plans for next year, and how I plan on using a narrative to thread all units, lessons, and assignments together, so now I would like to write a bit about my plans for assessment.

Over the past few months I have been reading more and more about the concept of levelling when it comes to assessment. I posted a thought about this on Facebook, and a friend replied by saying that we already do that...it just so happens that the levels are letters (A, B...). I agree that is essentially what our letter-grades are, but what I'm interested in is something a bit different.

I like idea of assessment that is motivating rather than demotivating. Sounds obvious, eh? The standard letter grade approach, though, is demotivating. As often as I can show my students their grades throughout the year, they are always left somewhat in the dark. Further, their grades are in flux at every point. One bad test and their B+ goes down to a B or B-. That is a lot of stress and confusion to put on a kid.

Instead of the typical approach I want to change things up next year and go with a levelling system. The concept is ripped-off of countless video and board games, but it is a tried and true system of motivation and reward. Next year I am going to institute a level system where everyone starts at level 1. In a typical classroom we imagine, the kids do too, starting off at an A+ and we have the rest of the year to try and maintain that goal. It is too difficult for many students, and it is demotivating for most. A system where everyone starts at the bottom gives each kid a fresh, clean slate, and they can only ever move up. Going up is always better than moving down. Talk about motivation!

In my version of this system I will have 100 levels, which corresponds to 100% in the course. The course assignments are broken up into chunks of eXperience Points (XP) totalling 1000. An example: a test worth 50 XP is worth 5% of their total mark or 5 levels. Every single assessment I do (homework, class work, assignments, tests) will have a corresponding point (XP) associated with it. The better a student does the more XP they earn and the more levels they move up. The assessments at my school carry a particular weight, which I would work in as well. Diagnostic assessments and daily work assignments are worth 10% of their mark, formative assessments are worth 45%, and summatives are also worth 45%. Stating that in terms of XP - daily work assignments = 100XP, formative = 450XP, and summative = 450XP. Every one of my assessments will need to add up to the total in their category.

With this sort of system in place, my students will always be aware of what level they are at and what each assignment actually means in relation to their overall mark. During the summer I am going to try and figure out a good way to display this information. I would like a progress bar of some kind, ideally a digital one that can be easily updated. If it could be worked in beside a profile picture of their character and their character's name that would be great. I wouldn't even have too much of a problem displaying all levels in the class, because it would be an added motivater for students. In that scenario there wouldn't be shame associated with having a "D" because the board would simply show a level.

I will likely add in achievements for reaching certain benchmark levels as well. Level 10 and you get an edmodo badge, level 25 and you get a special treat, or something like that. I will touch on some of the achievements I have planned in a later post along with my behaviour points system (still playing with some concepts). Also - when I figure out how I want to display the levels to the students, I'll explain or show an example. Sometimes this stuff can be hard to understand without a visual.

I'm planning a lot of changes for next year, and it will be tough to keep up on it so I am planning on doing a lot of work this summer (when not getting married, going on my honeymoon, and visiting with family and friends). Amanda and I leave Kuwait in a few days and fly back to Canada! Oh, Canada!