Giving Everyone a Voice

This week the ASPIRE 5 class integrated two apps that have similar benefits.  First, the students participated in an online book discussion hosted by Today's Meet.  After a question was posted, students typed their answers of 140 characters or less for everyone to see.  No one could talk, as all answers and ideas had to be posted online.  After eight analysis questions, we had a sixteen page thread of responses and opinions!  

The second app we used this week was Quickvoice.  After students researched a significant colonial figure, they recorded a podcast with the app and emailed it to me.  When all of the podcasts have been submitted, I will upload them to Google Classroom, and the students will have the opportunity to learn about the other figures from their classmates.  

Together, these apps show how our digital classroom allows students to collaborate in order to achieve a collective goal.  They give everyone in the class a voice, even if they have passive personalities.  In addition, these apps provide a window into the future of education.  Instead of snow days, students can collaborate with their teachers with an app such as Today's Meet from the comfort of their own home.  Quickvoice and Youtube could be used to record and share mini-lessons, discussion questions, or interviews, which would allow teachers to flip classrooms and spend more time on analysis and application activities.  

As a digital classroom, we will continue to implement apps that help meet the needs of gifted students.  The goals are to provide opportunities to collaborate in order to solve complex problems, and to differentiate instruction so that students can work at their own pace and ability level.  As a result, they will have the potential to "thrive in an innovative environment" and become better "prepared for the world that awaits them in ten years and beyond." - LEAD 2021 

Symbols and Artifacts

Throughout the year, we have created icons to represent words and concepts.  This activity allows students to use their creativity to form a relationship between two things you wouldn't recognize at first glance.  This week, we took this critical thinking activity one step further in Language Arts.  After reading a story about a dangerous mountain climbing expedition, the students were required to find three artifacts in my room to describe an aspect of what they read, and place them in a "mystery bag."  Each student was given the opportunity to share the items with their table group, and to present their favorite artifact with the entire class.  Some of the examples included white out to represent mistakes made on the mountain, gold glitter because life is precious like jewelry, and dice because the main character took a chance with his life by climbing the mountain.

Quick activities such as this provide gifted students opportunities to show higher order thinking.  It can also help them make the transition to more abstract thinking as they create and analyze metaphorical tasks such as analogies.  Overall, I believe icons and artifacts can be powerful tools in our classroom, as the students have demonstrated their creativity and the ability to form complex relationships between concepts and objects.  If you have the opportunity, I suggest you try this at home with your child.  I am sure you will be as intrigued with the results as I have been.

Socratic Seminar

This week the ASPIRE 5 class participated in their first Socratic Seminar of the year.  On day one, the students read Kaddo's Wall from the Junior Great Books Series.  The story is an African folk tale in which a rich man, Kaddo, does not know what to do with his excess corn.  Against the wishes of the poor citizens, he builds a wall from the corn.  After seasons of drought, Kaddo is forced to eat his own wall, and he eventually begs to borrow seed to plant.  In the end, he is so hungry that he can not help but eat his corn seed, which leads to his death.  Thus, the stage was set for an engaging Socratic Seminar.

The next day, students were divided into pairs.  One student was assigned to Circle 1, while the other was assigned to Circle 2.  An Inquiry Discussion Question was presented for each circle.  Students worked with their partners to form opinions using evidence from the text.  They used post-it notes to record their ideas, and helped each other find passages from the text to support their views.

After the students completed their pre-discussion work, we formed an inner circle and an outer circle.  "Coaches" sat behind their partners in the outer circle, while speakers formed the inner circle.  Norms were presented and edited for the discussion to promote a courteous environment.  When everyone was ready, we began the discussion.  The goal was to keep a conversation going that provided many points of view and insightful opinions about the question.  Rubrics were presented for students to evaluate themselves and their partner.  The highest score on the rubric described students that volunteered, contributed to the discussion at a high level, and provided evidence from the text.  Coaches were allowed to whisper and trade notes with their partners during the discussion.  When Circle 1 was done, they completed the rubric, and reversed roles for the second question.

I was extremely impressed with the results of our first seminar.  The students were polite, engaged, and contributed a wide variety of opinions and views.  The responses showed higher level thinking, and they were supported with evidence from the story.  Students actively coached their partner as the conversation progressed.  There was never a minute of awkward silence, and the conversation flowed like an adult academic discussion.  I did not have to intervene until we were running low on time, and a few students still needed a turn to speak.

Socratic Seminars are excellent tools because they can be used for all content areas.  I am sure the students will find them even more interesting as we address controversial topics they have strong opinions about.  Socratic Seminars provide students with opportunities to collaborate, communicate in front of the entire class, demonstrate high-level thinking, and support opinions with evidence.  I am pleased with our first attempt, and I am looking forward to using it as a regular strategy throughout the year.

Building Hotels for Profit

This week, our math class was able to take the time to combine two of the concepts we have already covered this year: financial literacy and multiplication.  In this NTCM Illuminations activity, students attempted to build the most profitable hotel in the class.  First, the students were presented with the four rules.  They had to use 50 unifix cubes (each cube represented one hotel room), it had to stand freely, each room had to have at least one visible window (vertical face), and everything had to be connected.

From there, students were given two sets of parameters for their designs.  First, the students had to pay for the cost of the hotel by taking into consideration its area and height, and the number of roofs and windows.  Of particular interest was the tax table, which was based on the building's height.  Students were also given prices they would receive from guests for each kind of room.  (Rooms varied by the number of windows, and whether or not it had a roof.)  In the end, students calculated their profit or loss, and compared their bottom line with other groups.

This was a successful activity for several reasons in my opinion.  First, the students were able to see the real-world application of two skills we have learned this year.  Second, the students were able to use creativity, problem solving methods, and collaboration skills on the same product.  There were many insightful conversations about maximizing area, avoiding higher taxes, designing rooms with higher prices, and calculation strategies.  The students met the challenge with excitement, and many of their designs made a significant profit.  (Mr. Boykin's design lost $2,900!)  Overall, it was a good example of the kind of problem solving that our ASPIRE students are capable of, and I am proud of their positive approach to a challenging task.

(Please note that 4th grade telescopers did not participate due to their Cardboard City activity.)

SMART Goals and E-Portfolios

Next week, students will lead conferences with their parents.  I am very excited about what the ASPIRE 5 class has to share.  First, students have been working hard writing their SMART goals for the new year.  SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.  We are writing three different goals for the 2014-2015 school year.  Academic goals will be focused on a specific content area and skill students want to improve.  Career goals will focus on a strategy that could help them in a future career.  It could be specific like equations, or more general such as problem solving or leadership skills.  In addition, a personal goal has been set to help them with life skills such as organization or collaborative learning.

The students are also working hard to prepare their new e-portfolio.  All GCISD students will use e-portfolios in future years.  Many classes across the district are currently piloting the program.  While ASPIRE is not part of the official pilot, we are using them so that students can showcase their digital work.  After uploading their SMART goals, students will customize their webpages with their favorite digital work samples.  The exciting part is how they will be able to reflect on their work as they progress through every grade level.  The e-portfolio will stay with them as long as they are in GCISD, which will give them an opportunity to see their academic growth.  This has the potential to be a very powerful tool, and I can’t wait for the students to unveil their creations next week!