The Thread That Ties Us Together

Building Collaboration, Creativity, and Critical Thinking One Block at a Time

Third grade educator Cathy Baker partnered with Cox Elementary Librarian Jamie Jensen to design a video game that determines Harriet Tubman's greatest achievement. Before students were able to create the video game Cathy designed a variety of inquiry based learning experiences in the classroom about Harriet Tubman to ensure students understood the content first. Jamie then offered Bloxels as a way for students to demonstrate their understanding of Harriet Tubman. This tool allowed the students to plan and design visuals that would come to life in the form of a video game re-enactment of important events in Harriet Tubman's life.

Before jumping right in with technology students planned a storyboard on paper with their group that focused on the character, the time period, and the trials of this historical figure. Then, students had to determine each group member's role by deciding which group member specialized in creating the character, background, and additional props and animations. All students had an active role in participating with this project but the most successful groups had high-functioning teams who were able to work together and think critically to create their finished product. Finally, one team was selected as an Expo 2019 submission and then also selected by the campus for their learning experience to be showcased at Expo 2019. The girls presented the project to families and guests who played their game and discovered firsthand how their learning guided their creation.

Clara Love Elementary GATES educatory, Kristy Schluter decided Bloxels was the perfect platform for her second grade story writing project. Students took the time to create and plan their characters, setting, and plot for their story before they turned it into a video game. Next, Kristy reached out to her campus Instructional Technologist, Jillian Phillips, to learn more about Bloxels. Jillian had seen the experience the student at Cox Elementary designed and she put Kristy in contact with the Cox Elementary gurus!! She set up a time for Clara Love’s second grade students to Zoom with Cox Elementary’s third grade experts. The third graders were able their peers in 2nd grade how to use Bloxels. Jillian also set up a Flipgrid where our Clara Love and Cox Elementary students could ask and answer questions virtually throughout the unit.

Kristy’s second grade GATES students loved every second of the design process involved with Bloxes and believed this was a wonderful learning experience!  Designing video games through Bloxesl is fun for the students and relatively easy for them to use. Students were 100% engaged and learned a lot by trial and error. Bloxels has endless options for creating intricate rooms and pathways for students who want to go above and beyond. Mrs. Schluter believes these types of learning experiences are important because they provide opportunities for students to be in control of creating the content and sharing it with an authentic audience. Students loved having so much creative freedom and the ability to see their ideas come to life in their very own video games. Both of these projects integrated elements of coding, ELA, math, and STEM into a totally student-centered PBL that combines imagination, creativity, critical thinking, technology, and problem-solving skills as they design a video game.

4th Grade Natural Disasters Project: Making IT Personal

Many educators today are making the shift from teacher centered to student-centered learning experiences.  Fourth grade English Language Arts and Social Studies teacher Deanna McCabe in partnership with her teammate Charlotte DeRossett, GATES teacher Cindy Ford, and Library Media Specialist Jamie Jensen at Cox Elementary were able to design a personalized learning experience that challenged students to use nonfiction text features to create an interactive project that will teach others about natural disasters. 

Originally the project began as students simply making posters using nonfiction text features to showcase the information they had researched about natural disasters. Mrs. McCabe and Mrs. DeRossett felt that this project was a great opportunity to dive into personalized learning and integrated many technology tools that would support and enhance the learning process. Mrs. McCabe said, “In the beginning there was a lot of brainstorming involved - a lot of collaboration, investigating, researching, and learning in order to figure out how to make this project happen!” She and Mrs. DeRossett worked hard to tier their students' abilities, as well as group them by their interests”. Once Mrs. McCabe and Mrs. DeRossett figured out that they wanted students to have the opportunity to present their final project “expo-style” for K-5 students at Cox Elementary, they were able to put the instructional pieces together.  Mrs. McCabe described the planning process as the most time-consuming portion of this project. She feels like the key to their planning success was determining what they wanted the final product to look like, collaborating with others to push their students beyond what they knew, and being open to productive struggle for themselves and their students.

Mrs. McCabe created an  interest survey  using Google Forms so she and Mrs. DeRossett could find out more about their students’ interests in natural disasters.  Then students were strategically grouped in Google Sheets based on their ability levels and interests.  Students were given a research template to guide their investigations about natural disasters.  Each student was responsible for teaching a specific topic related to their natural disaster which helped hold them accountable for contributing to the “expo-style” presentation. Mrs. McCabe believes this strategic grouping expectation took some pressure off group members because they were able to work on their own projects independently, but also had the opportunity to collaborate as a group to present their information to other students at Cox Elementary. 

Students were also provided differentiated project menus with a multitude of options, rubrics, and clear expectations for designing their project. The students loved having a choice for how they would engage their learners based off of how they themselves love to learn. Mrs. McCabe and Mrs. DeRossett introduced their students to a variety of apps, websites, and experiences that they had never used before.   Using technology was critical in the planning, research, implementation, and reflections for this entire project. Mrs. McCabe and Mrs. DeRossett used many different technology tools such as: Google Apps for Education (Slides, Docs, Forms, Sheets, Sites), Metaverse (augmented reality), VR tours, digital breakouts, and green screens (DoInk and WeVideo) that supported the learning process and product for this project.  These technology tools increased student's excitement, participation, and enjoyment of the learning process. These tools were also easily differentiated based on individual students' needs. The students were able to manipulate the tools so that they could successfully teach other students as young as kindergarten or as old as 5th grade. 

Pear Deck: Music to My Ears

Imagine being immersed in a learning environment where large groups of students are constantly being monitored for mastery of music literacy concepts.  Kayla Gentry, music teacher at Cox Elementary, is using Pear Deck to achieve this goal. In Mrs. Gentry’s class, third through fifth grade learners have an opportunity to show their understanding of both rhythmic and melodic grade level concepts each time they have a music rotation with her.  

Mrs.  Gentry believes Pear Deck is enhancing her students learning opportunities by providing them with an engaging way to respond to how they read and hear music in her room.   Pear Deck offers 5 interactive question types which allows teachers to ask all learners for their answers, opinions, and ideas. Students are able to answer the question on their own device and for Averi, a 5th grader in Mrs. Gentry’s class, this is one of her favorite features because our teacher can “know what we are struggling on without failing in front of the class.”

From a teacher’s perspective Mrs. Gentry loves that  Pear Deck allows you to display student responses instantly so they can discuss correct answers and misconceptions as a class. Also, Pear Deck saves a copy of each individual student's responses to the teacher’s Google Drive allowing the teacher to monitor individual student progress.  Vincent, a learner in Mrs. Gentry’s music class, likes Pear Deck because “I’m a little shy and Pear Deck allows me to share my answer.”  Another learner from Mrs. Gentry’s class says Pear Deck is a great experience because she likes when the session asks about her individual mood.  “If we aren't having a great day it could affect how we learn.”

Through the use of Pear Deck Mrs. Gentry is empowering her learners to take an active role in their learning experiences while using technology.  Students are able to demonstrate their understanding of music literacy concepts in a variety of ways and use their session take aways to set personal learning goals in music.  Pear Deck has been a transformational tool to help Mrs. Gentry customize her learning environment in ways that support the learning process for her students.

ISTE Standards

Empowered Learner

Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences.

1a  Students articulate and set personal learning goals, develop strategies leveraging technology to achieve them and reflect on the learning process itself to improve learning outcomes.

1b  Students build networks and customize their learning environments in ways that support the learning process.

1c  Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.

1d  Students understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.

Cox Academy Takes Off!

4th graders at Wayne A. Cox Elementary are taking learning into their own hands.  Mrs. Krista Sarpalius created a Wix website for her students to use this year called Cox Academy.  While, she set up the shell of the website, it is up to the students in the grade level to add the content.  The students have spent the year creating math instructional videos and presentations to add to the website.  The website is then available to parents and students at any time to help them with the understanding of any of the math concepts that have been taught this year in 4th grade.

http://www.coxacademytx.com/

 In an interview with some of the 4th graders they told me exactly how Cox Academy has helped them understand the content at a much deeper level.   One of the girls, Averi, stated that,"When I make the videos I try to think about what it would be like if I didn't understand the problem.  I have to not think through it like I already know how to do it. I have to think more simple and slow down my thinking so that anyone struggling to understand also has time to think through it."
Another student, Klaire, told me that the website has become a great tool for self- assessment.  She said that students can take the quizzes when they feel they have mastered a concept, and if they don't pass the quiz they know to go back and watch the videos again.

The students create the videos using an ipad and then upload them to Dropbox.  The presentations have been created in Google Slides and there are even a few quizzes that have been created in Fyrebox Quiz Maker.  The students have been the ones to decide on how they will deliver the content and then researched presentation platforms to choose the best fit for their audience. When I asked Brynne, a student at Cox Elementary, who she thought their main audience was she said, "My parents are always trying to help me with my math. But they learned it a different way and when they show me their way I get confused. So the videos and quizzes help them see how to do the math and then tests them on their understanding."

This really has been such a mindset shift for these kids and parents.  One parent has even helped them make a Cox Academy App using Hockey App. The free app will be available in the App Store for iOS devices hopefully, next week! Also coming next week, a guest appearance by some 1st grade mathematicians with instructional videos for addition and subtraction!

Google Drive Classroom

Students in Mrs. Gierisch's 2nd grade class at Wayne A. Cox Elementary have turned their classroom inside out.  They were given the opportunity to test out a class set of Chromebooks.  The students had never logged into Google, and their teacher had only used Google Drive a little bit.  After 3 weeks these kids were on fire.  They are now using Google Drive daily.
  At first, they just practiced their Google log in, then slowly they explored adding folders, Docs, Slides, and Draw.  Mrs. Gierisch also taught them the importance of their email.  Through a shared Google Doc they can access a link straight to their NISD email.  They have practiced checking it daily.  Students have always come into the room each day and completed morning work, only now their work might be sent through email or even posted in a shared folder from their teacher.

                      

Example of Morning Work

Students First Shot at Google Slides

                           

Over the last month, these students have learned so much! For example in Science, they learned about Kiddle.co and researched different stages of a butterfly lifecycle. Then worked in groups to collaborate and create this google slide to present their learning. Last week they were even confident enough in their latest learning of Google Slides to present at our district's Night of No Limits.  Google Drive has changed the way these students learn!