Personal Pathways to Success: Nurturing Growth Through Mastery Paths in Canvas LMS

You Get a Slide… You Get a Slide… You Get a Slide...

 

The concept of journaling is not new in education.  Teachers and students around the world know the benefits of students keeping journals to take notes, practice concepts, and reflect upon learning experiences.  Eighth graders in Mrs. Karen Groves’ science class have taken their journals to a whole new level. 

One myth about education is that outsiders think that teachers do not do anything during the summer during time away from school.  Nothing is further from the truth!  This entire process began at a summer ADI conference that Mrs. Groves was attending. The Argument Driven Inquiry is an instructional model and it teaches students to use argument to construct, support, and evaluate scientific claims of their own. It pushes students to dig deeper into important content as they gain a better understanding of the science. Keeping a student journal is especially important in this model of learning for reflection. Attending conferences allows educators to network with other teachers. During one of her lunches she met three other educators from the DFW area and they were discussing a tool that they used to support ADI and it was Google Slides Add-On called Slip-in-Slide.   The add on pushes any number of slides to an entire folder of student presentations making distribution of new materials quick and easy.  It Integrates with the folder structure of Google to send your slides directly into students' existing presentations. Mrs.Groves created an assignment in Canvas which forced a copy of her original set of slides to each student.  She then created a Google Form for her students to collect the shareable slide links and now can see student progress in real time as students add text, images, and/or videos. Students can access their notebook any way and any time. This product includes a full-access free 60 day trial, but eventually will cost $10 for a LIFETIME subscription. Mrs. Groves partnered up with three other teachers to practice and learn about the add on and the rest is classroom history for this school year.  

One of the best parts of my job as an Instructional Technologist is the opportunity to walk into a classroom and observe great teachers doing great things to increase student learning. Mrs. Groves was so excited to have me come in and observe as she was in the process of pushing out seven slides that the students would need that day for the lesson.  A few of them were notes and the others required students to interact with them to learn. As I walked around the classroom, Cole Bolton said, “this process makes it easier for me because I do not have to open up multiple tabs. I can also keep all my slides for the entire year in one location to help me study.”

Prapti Paudel was excited to share her experiences with using Google Slides in the classroom, “I like how I do not have to cut and glue in papers into my journal. The new slides I get from my teacher each unit helps to keep me organized and easier to access my journal anyway at any time.”

Elijah Akion was quite impressed with his interactive notebook as well. He states, “I can design, annotate, insert images or videos, draw, type, and have everything in my digital notebook.” He also pointed out how easy the slides are to manage because she has added a hyperlinked table of contents. 

Mrs. Groves not only saves time with interactive notebooks, but she's able to see student work in real time. She is able to give students the skill of looking at work over time and managing an ongoing digital notebook. The Add On Mrs. Groves learned about this summer, makes this ongoing process a reality.  She states, “Prior to this we would open multiple slideshows and post numerous links for kids to access in our LMS. These cumulative and interactive notebooks have definitely been a game changer in my classroom!” 

Define > Dissect > Design = 3D Print Using MinecraftEDU

Students at Adams Middle School were given a life-like challenge to modify various puzzles with very small pieces for a child with a visual impairment. CTE Teacher, Mrs. Sheila Greene, wanted her students to practice an engineering skill called mechanical dissection of an object to understand an object's detailed design.

To modify the puzzle, you first have to mechanically dissect the layers of the puzzle. The first step into dissection is to isometrically draw all of the pieces of the puzzle on graph paper for accuracy to get an understanding of the 2D layers.  Jeremy F. said, “I like how I can see my mistakes, not to mention how this helps me in robotics and computer science.” 

 

Students documented the following in their journal during the investigation:

• Steps for how you assemble and disassemble the toy.
• Multiview sketch of each puzzle piece.
• Fully dimensioned sketch of the puzzle pieces

“This type of learning is preparing me to become a mechanical engineer,” said Jonathan F. 

This 2021-2022 school year NISD purchased Minecraft Education Edition for teachers and students to integrate into any content area.  Minecraft Education Edition is a game-based learning platform that promotes creativity, collaboration and problem-solving in a digital environment.  Common Sense Media states about Minecraft EDU, “Minecraft EDU is an excellent tool to engage students in learning, collaboration, and critical thinking and is now more accessible than ever to teachers.” 

To bring real world connections to the project, Mrs. Greene challenged her students to use digital tools to design larger puzzle pieces that will be printed on the 3D printer. Students needed to use their math and thinking skills to tinker with the X, Y, and Z axes to get the model placed into the build area

Being that Minecraft is new to NISD, Mrs. Greene did not know how to execute the program, but after a conversation with one of her expert students, Ayden, he volunteered to create a video tutorial and teach the class.  

 Click Image Above for Ayden’s Tutorial

As Ayden showed students how to print their work, Evan T. circulated among students helping them with Minecraft settings and block placement.  Now students in Robotics 1 are also using what they learned from Ayden and Evan and other student experts to create Minecraft-themed decorations to 3D print for their pull-toy mechanism.  Mrs. Greene said, “it is so cool to see students teaching each other and figuring out solutions together -- that’s real world collaboration and skill-building that increases their confidence and their trust in each other at the same time.”

 At the end of the experience, students will print their images on the Dremel 3D Printer. Check out some of their work below:

All of the NISD Minecraft for Education resources can be found here.  Feel free to contact your campus Instructional Technologist to answer any questions you might have. 

When Characters Come Alive

Kirstie Cooper’s ELA class at Adams Middle School is one that students are consistently engaged, challenged, and having fun. She takes everyday lessons and turns them into learning experiences for her students. 

"All Summer in a Day" is a Science Fiction short story by Ray Bradbury. Cooper gave her students a digital copy though Google Classroom, which streamlines the process of sharing files between teachers and students. As they read the story they used Kami to annotate the text. Students focused on the characterization of Margot as they read.When finished, an analysis of the text which included looking at elements such as point of view, figurative language, and theme was done. Once students completed that task, they began compiling all of their knowledge of the text to incorporate into the final task.

To begin, Cooper used Flippity to do a random group generator. The kids weren’t thrilled that they didn’t get to choose groups, but Flippity eliminated that potential management struggle. Next, students created a Google Doc, which they collaborated with each other on, shared with the teacher, and begin creating a script. Students were tasked with creating a “talk show” style script where there would be hosts who interviewed the two main characters of “All Summer in a Day”, Margot and William. Students had to create 3 questions per guest and formulate their response based on inferences from the text and the characterization of Margot and William. Finally, once students finished their script, they used Flipgrid to record themselves hosting their talk show. This gave quiet students a voice, it allowed us to see the profound thoughts you didn't know were there, and took their learning to a deeper level than you thought possible for this learning opportunity.

Student Talk Show Example

Student Talk Show Example

The Game of Life: A Financial Literacy Project

At Adams Middle School, Hanna Patredis and Ashley Dacus wanted to turn their financial literacy project that was all paper and pencil into a interactive hyperdoc for the students to really engage in real world situations. They wanted their students to truly see how their choices affect their future wealth. Students were asked to estimate the cost of a college education, calculate the school loans, determine simple and compound interest formulas, and make a household budget.

The lesson was created on a hyperdoc where students were able to interact and input their answers in the google slide that was copied for each student. The teachers used the grey space in slides to give instructions and place extra information needed. A YouTube video of dice being rolled was used when the students were asked to roll dice. All of these intentional moves set up by the teachers, created an experience for the students that was interactive. Lucy, a student on Mrs. Dacus’ class said, “I like designing my own life using math skills throughout the year. The digital format helped my

ideas stay organized and I could access it anywhere.” Check out Lucy’s work here.

At the end of the experience, students had voice and choice in how they wanted to represent their knowledge of the financial literacy unit. Students choose from a menu board on how they want to present their work creatively. Check out some of their work below:

• Create a bitmoji or cut out: dressed for your job with a speech bubble of your life description
• Create a Google Slide presentation of how your life turned out
• Write a letter to someone updating them on your life

Word Up! Using Technology to Teach, Reinforce and Support the Learning of Academic Language

After successfully completing Technology Integration Academy, Mark Anthony Page, felt better equipped to bring even more technology to the classroom.  Being at Adams Middle School , the new campus, Mr. Page and his teaching partner, Kris Mouser wanted to embrace technology and set a standard for the campus and be a model department for their program Career and College Readiness/Professional Communication. (CCR)

Mr. Page and Mrs. Mouser are integrating Vocabulary.com into their weekly routine. Once a week students log into their Vocabulary.com site and work to build their academic language skills. For years’ teachers have included Word Walls as a part of their curriculum. Using a digital platform like Vocabulary.com takes students learning to the next level. The platform allows students to operate in a safe space where their success and struggles can be private. This may seem small but ability to work independently gives students the confidence to try.

Mr. Page and Mrs. Mouser, use the website to teach new language. When the CCR duo is introducing a new lesson they go into the program and create a word bank for their students to get acclimated with the new terminology. The program takes the words and builds a game in which their 8th graders can match words with definitions. They also, use the program to reinforce terms that students are already familiar with by giving them extra time to practice seeing the terms in different sentence structures and context. Further building their own knowledge of the words. Finally, the program is used to support students who have low or limited vocabulary in the English language.The program adds support for ESL students who are still grasping at trying to understand the language and the many functions that words in the English language can have.

Mr. Page & Mrs. Mouser’s classrooms are leading the way at integrating technology and making sure their students are prepared to be global leaders.What they are accomplishing at Leo Adams is setting the standard of what can be accomplished with technology.