Student Perspectives: A Comprehensive Reflection on Project-Based Learning

 

“This was probably my favorite project that I've ever done in an English class because it is based on a topic that I am a big fan of -- video games. I've never done something that I've been extremely interested in during English class.” - Hunter

“This project involved video games, art, symbolism, gothic literature, and design -- all things that I love.” - Traci

“I am proud of the different ways I was able to better the project because of the effort I gave. This was an amazing idea to get us to engage and learn about gothic themes and symbolisms.” - Caitlyn 

Statements like these are sure to put a smile on any teacher’s face because, naturally, teachers want their students to enjoy learning. They want students to be engaged and excited about their work. But not all learning experiences result in the kind of enthusiasm these students expressed in their project reflections.

So, what was different about this assignment?

The Project

Students in the STEM Academy at Northwest High School completed a “Gothic Video Games PBL”. They were assigned a small team (3-4 people) and tasked with creating a video game design that honored Edgar Allen Poe’s contributions to Gothic Literature. By the end of their project, they had to answer the driving question, “How does style drive creativity?” Their learning tasks included:

• work as a team to develop an E10+, ‘gothic game’ idea loosely based on an existing Gothic short story 
• create a visual representation of their game to support the pitch
• 'pitch' their idea to a local game developer through a formal presentation

The end-products themselves aren’t that unique, so what made this project so engaging? In PBL students follow a learning path wherein creation acts as the impetus for learning.

Project-based learning reframes traditional teaching, offering real-world, hands-on experience. In PBL students are challenged to create an authentic end-product, but haven’t necessarily learned what they need to know to create that end-product. In this way, student inquiry drives learning in a PBL.

Students know they have to create or do something (and even have a product rubric), but they don’t always know how to accomplish their task or have the knowledge they need to get it done. Students gain those throughout the PBL and apply what they learn as they create. This is different from classrooms where demonstrating mastery primarily happens at the end of a unit.

Paired with consistent feedback, PBL leaves room for students to fail in the moment but still grow and succeed in the end. The need to create becomes a catalyst to learning, and within the parameters of the PBL, a student can personalize their learning experience based on their interests and passions. How and what students learn in a PBL is organically driven by their authentic "need to know" for the purpose of creating.

(A note for teachers: In PBL, student inquiry is strategically planned and guided. The success of projects like these hinge on detailed backward design and the facilitator’s intentional guidance and scaffolding of student thinking throughout the project.)

The Reflection

Through Project-Based Learning, students get more than just academic content. In PBL students practice critical skills like communication, personal responsibility, time management, teamwork, and creativity. Student reflections even showed that through PBL students apply what they learn across content areas and make cross-curricular and industry connections.

"[Through this project] I grew my knowledge of game design and gothic elements, which allowed me to become more creative with those things. In a STEM field, most of the problems you have to solve aren't going to have definitive answers, so you need to be creative and innovative to solve them." - Robert

“A creative skill that I grew during this project has to be brainstorming. I don't brainstorm often… but this project and the brainstorming [needed] allowed me to think of a lot of unique ideas we could add to our game.” - Rylan

“Creativity is extremely important in the STEM field as it requires everyone to be unique when it comes to approaching a problem. If we all share the same idea, the final product will be dull.” - Anthony

"Our group's problem-solving was phenomenal. We found many issues with our original idea, but then made an amazing comeback and [designed] a whole new game and presentation. My group was lacking in the communication department... Thankfully, we pulled ourselves back together to make what I would say is a pretty good project." - Ethan

Of course, no collaborative effort is without its challenges. Students shared that, by working together, they learned to advocate for themselves and each other. They learned to lead, to compromise, to play on each other’s strengths, and to communicate with one another in a professional manner. Ultimately, they learned with and from each other.

“We came across many problems while working on our project. There were many things that we either disagreed with or didn't fully understand. We had to collaborate and try to work things out.” - Ryan

“I've grown as a problem-solver by understanding my weaknesses and getting help from people who are better at a particular thing than I am.” - Amelia

“This project taught me a lot of presentation skills that I will need in the future... After watching many [other teams present], I was able to learn the best ways to talk, communicate, and demonstrate ideas when presenting. That is why I enjoyed this project so much. I was able to learn some really great ways on how I should go about presenting.” - Vincent

“We were able to blend our ideas as a team to make something really cool.” - Anthony 

The Products

After two and a half weeks of hard work, students were proud of themselves and of what they had created. They were eager to celebrate and share their hard work, growth, and successes. They presented their ideas to a panel of judges, which included a gaming expert who was acting as their game developer. Celebrate these hardworking students by exploring are some of their final products:

“The Crypt”

This team of STEM students designed a full website, complete with original artwork, to showcase their video game idea based off of the story “The Fall of the House of Usher”. Highlighting the idea that our surroundings have an impact on our mental health, they challenged players to escape from the Crypt before they "go insane". Replete with gothic imagery and symbolism, in this game, players are “in a fight against insanity, which is caused by the dark”. The player “must cling to torches and light sources to save what sanity remains”.

"Puppet's Mirror"

This group designed a game where you escape by solving puzzles. They cleverly embedded mini-games that innocently represented the darker aspects of their short story, "The Black Cat" in order to adhere to their E10+ kid-friendly rating for their game. For instance, when in the story the cat loses an eye to the owner's violence, in the game, players are instead transported to "a rigged rotating cup" game with images of a one-eyed cat. They even used online tools to create an AI vision board for their game. They also created 3D mockups of their main character, noting minor adjustments in her appearance to symbolize her personality changing and other gothic aspects of their game. 

"Just Around The Corner"

In this "labyrinth escape game", players must get out "before the consequences of their actions catch up with them". In this excellent presentation, students shared original artwork, that included iconic gothic symbolism from Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat". Their work helped the project judges visualize each level. They also included a detailed description of how sensory elements of gameplay and user experience would communication the theme, build suspense, and contribute to the overall gothic of the game. Lastly, their pitch used persuasive diction to entice future players. 

Thinking about trying a PBL with your students? Check out these helpful resources from PBLWorks. 

Elevating Student Learning with Technology Integration Academy

Goodbye one-size-fits-all lesson! See ya to an old mindset of technology use automatically equaling a higher level learning experience! 

HELLO personalized, needs-based & interests-based, choice-filled, differentiated, self-paced instruction! Technology Integration Academy meets teachers, administrators, and librarians where they are with technology integration and provides tangible resources and intentional modeling to elevate experiences for their unique learners. 

"But I'm already using technology in my classroom. Can I be exempt?" One of the best parts of TIA is that it is structured to grow EVERY learner from their current experience as choice is embedded in every module to provide a meaningful and tailored PD. Rather than providing a skills-based checklist where everyone meets the same end-goal, in this growth-mindset course, there is no technology proficiency ceiling, so the sky is the limit with possibilities that meet individual comfort levels. 

A primary goal of TIA is to highlight that technology usage itself does not elevate the learning experience; rather, it focuses on what students are being asked to do with the technology. Listing ideas on a Google Doc might have it's place in the lesson cycle, but are there also opportunities to publish to a larger audience, digitally collaborate outside the walls of the classroom, choose a personalized path or product, or create using higher level thinking? Focusing on the cognitive demand of the task helps to shift the focus from "Does this lesson have an element of technology" to "How can I pick the right technology platform to meet the intended learning goal?" 

The course content is structured around digital learning platforms we support in Northwest ISD, such as Learning Management Systems by grade level and the suite of apps in Google Workspace, accompanied by high impact instructional practices, like collaboration, creation, critical thinking, choice, reflection, and goal setting which are modeled in the course design and supported by participation requirements.

Take a look at some examples to explore the original prompt for various modules paired with unique creations and perspectives that develop as a result of choice, ownership, and collaboration.

 

To solidify new learning and identify actions steps moving forward, participants have a variety reflection opportunities in final module. Here are a few takeaways from the Spring 2021 TIA Cohort:

• I have really liked exploring the different opportunities for choice and differentiation throughout this course. It has been nice to be able to pick according to my learning level and not have to be able to review things I have already learned. Another aspect I have enjoyed from this course is being able to be reflective and set goals on how I want to grow in the future. I want to try to incorporate more technology especially with goal setting and student choice. - Elementary Interventionist
• Opportunities for Choice and Differentiation - I've come to realize that technology can play a significant role in the efficiency of differentiation. Meaningful Technology Integration - Technology is more than just assigning a google doc for the students to complete and submit. It can be collaborative and used to help students connect and enhance their learning. -7th Grade Science Teacher
• I thought it was important to review SAMR and take a reflective look at the technology integration that I currently use in the classroom. I noticed that most technology I use is on the lower end of SAMR, so I've set a goal of looking at the technology use that allows for even more learning involvement for the students. My goals for moving forward also include being more productive with technology use in the classroom (like using the iPad to be more mobile and keep track of student progress), and for parent communication. -5th Grade ELA/SS Teacher
• I will say that there are SO many options when it comes to technology use in the classroom. I was amazed at how many choices we have as teachers that are made available to us. My biggest plan is to use the technology to engage my students with presentations. I also want to really start using the IPAD for Doceri so I can walk around my room more. - High School CTE Teacher

Ready to take your technology integration to the next level? 

Enroll in the Summer 2021 TIA cohort today! The course content is available June 1st - August 8th, 2021.

For more information, visit these Technology Proficiency FAQs.

At Northwest ISD, we believe technology enables us to extend our reach and become more effective, relevant, and connected educators. We strive to use technology as a tool that engages our students at high cognitive levels, and this course is designed to reflect that philosophy in every way. This is important because NISD educators are expected to design, implement, and assess learning experiences to engage students and prepare them to be competitive and successful in a global marketplace.

A Recipe for Success: "Stringing" A Rhythmic Pattern

Learn.

Act.

Reflect.

Goal Set.

Repeat.

Is nailing down this process a Science or an Art? I'd argue it’s an Art - Fine Arts to be exact. Students in Gary Keller and Sessalie Shapley’s Orchestra class at Byron Nelson High School have perfected this process on a continual, weekly basis to improve students' overall abilities. One might think that Technology doesn’t doesn't have a logical place in an instrumental-based class, but that's far from the truth as this Orchestra class is fully dependent on the technology used in preparation for and reflection of daily performance.

Each class is infused with technology from start to end. For example, students are tasked with the responsibility of tuning their own instrument at the start of class each day; they use readily available, free, phone-based tuning apps such as DaTuner and InsTurner to put the accountability on themselves rather than the teacher to ensure the instrument is in the right key. This process is critical to harmonizing as an Orchestra and developing a natural ear for the correct sounding notes.

To continue in the lesson design, classes often provide traditional opportunities such as learning new music and practicing as a full Orchestra. However, the power of technology is truly evident in the individual practice times. During these times, students participate in the general format as follows:

Recipe for Success:

1. Students create a video of themselves playing a specific song or section of a song determined by the instructor. During this time, students use a combination of their phone and their computer to have both the online metronome and video camera co-functioning. This video serves as a pre-assessment to create a base-line of performance and needs assessment for the week.
2. Self-critique that video to identify one specific goal to work towards throughout the week. This then becomes the targeted focus for all practice times throughout the week. Topics of suggested focus include intonation, bow placement, vibrato, dexterity confidence, or other of choice.
3. The student then creates an end of week video over the same content and again uses that as direct evidence to self-assess progress towards goals.
4. Upload and reflect upon these artifacts in Google Classroom. The Orchestra instructors then review each student's performance to provide individualized attention and feedback focused specifically on the students' performance and self-set goal.
5. Based on their self-assessment and teacher feedback, the student then goal-sets via a Google Doc for the following week to continually focus on targeted instruction and self-improvement.

Each of these weekly goal sheets provide evidence for the student to reflect up on their progress towards goals and make new objectives based on previous performance. Since the evidence gets uploaded to Google Classroom, students have a personal Google Folder within their own Google Drive which serves as a private portfolio that stores their yearly progress. Students then have the ability to select which pivotal pieces they would like to showcase within their published ePortfolio.

Assistant Orchestra Director, Sessalie Shapley, comments on the power of infusing technology into their classroom, "Google Classroom video recordings allow me to give feedback to every student based on what I see and hear in their recordings. It is a far more efficient use of time letting the recording and grading happen outside of class instead of one at a time, in class, while all of the other students are waiting;" furthermore, "The video recording assignment allows and even encourages students to record themselves multiple times in order to get their “best” recording" which is the ultimate goal: student-driven success fueled by continual practice in perfecting their art. Best of all, the power of technology has helped Mr. Keller and Ms. Shapley build connections beyond what would be traditionally capable with a large Orchestra on a time-restricted class period as Sessalie continues, "The goal sheets and comments have given me several opportunities to discover something about the student’s expectations and other musical talents, gifts and thoughts, which then allowed for deeper discussion about their playing and their musicianship."

As a natural final step, students reflect on their year in an open-ended format. The power of reflection, goal-setting, and improvement shine through in the following student final responses:

Student 1:

“I thought that the goals were a great way to stay conscious of our playing abilities - to constantly be reminded of our strengths and weaknesses so that we can improve on them over time. I also believe that the exercises we were given are great practice strategies for improving many aspects of musicianship like dexterity and intonation.  I think I have certainly seen evidence of our goals in action as the progressed. Some of the goals on the goal sheets did not always pertain to me, but still having to look at them on a regular basis caused me to think more upon how I can always channel my actions in class and practice towards furthering the goals and the overall quality of our orchestra.”

Student 2:

“This year I have heard and felt so much progress in my playing. This was the first year I took private lessons, and I think that was extremely beneficial by itself. But beyond that I have felt so much more confidence in my playing. This was the first year I made it through a solo contest without crying, and the first year I came out of an audition room feeling proud of myself. And confidence alone has made a world of difference in my playing. I have also noticed a lot of progress related to our goals and goal videos. I didn’t realize it in the beginning, but when we came back near the end of the year and redid the dexterity video, it was actually really cool to find how much easier it was for me to do and how much clearer I sounded than in the beginning of the year. It was also useful to see the goals and realize that it’s okay to experiment with the bow and with the left hand, and just that everyone is doing what they can to make beautiful music in the outcome. I have seen so much progress this year in my playing and how I feel about it and I hope to see even more in years to come.”

The presence of technology has empowered these students to find value in the daily struggle of learning, trying, and occasionally failing all while appreciating their own growth that would otherwise not be as apparent strictly as perceptions and memories.

This intentional goal-setting and reflection process meets the following Student 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.
• 1c: Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.

This also exemplified the following TEA Music Level 1 TEKS in which the student is expected to develop processes for self-evaluation and select tools for personal artistic improvement (6c).

A Revelation about Resolutions

Watching a short TED talk on “Grit” by Angela Duckworth, a former consultant turned middle school math teacher, brought about thoughts of personal goal setting and perseverance, thoughts of new years resolutions, thoughts of never-ending attempts at self-improvement, thoughts lacking follow through, and thoughts of failure. It didn’t take long for those thoughts to bring on an overwhelming feeling of defeat with reminders of past inadequacies and ineptitude. As a new year begins, many will set personal and professional goals while trying to figure out how to keep from losing sight of those intentions and eventually abandoning them altogether. In that TED talk, Ms. Duckworth said one thing that began to turn lingering self-defeat into clarity and motivation: “…the ability to learn is not fixed...it can change with your effort…We have to be willing to fail, to be wrong, to start over again with lessons learned.” She very eloquently explained that the key to success and growth is not viewing failure as a permanent condition but as an opportunity for growth and forward progress.

Humans are conditioned to view failure in a very negative light and taught to take steps to avoid it at all cost. When failure is experienced, it is often seen as an endpoint in a journey instead of a brief detour or change in route. The question of how to change this mindset is one that is often neglected when working to facilitate skills for student success and, ultimately, life. However, when searching for solutions to this challenge, it becomes obvious that key elements for success must include clear and attainable goal setting and a frequent and effective self-reflection process.

Sticking with the traveling analogy, it stands to reason that experiential learning is a journey and beginning that journey without a clear destination in mind is futile and pointless. Even if the goal is to aimlessly explore and enjoy wherever life takes you, there is a destination, or goal, of some sort. While traveling, it is also good to keep in mind that when construction, a traffic problem, or an obstacle in a planned route arises, a detour can bring about many new and helpful experiences. The discovery of new places, the skill sets of flexibility and problem solving, and the knowledge of a better way of traveling for the future are all benefits to diverging from a planned path. Whatever it is that alters the planned route to a destination, the “failure” experienced in the pursuit of that original route is ultimately beneficial and one can only know this by reflecting on those experiences, understanding lessons learned, and setting a new course for success.

Eaton High School’s current resolution, or “problem of practice,” is to help students “demonstrate goal setting and reflection to foster critical thinking.” With this goal at the forefront of instruction, EHS provides prime examples of students utilizing digital resources for experiential learning, goal setting, and reflection. One of those examples can be seen in Jennifer Hamzy’s Psychology classes. Mrs. Hamzy uses Google Suite in two ways to provide EHS students with opportunities to reflect on content as well as course progress.

By copying a Google slide deck template, students receive detailed notes over chapter readings and lessons. In addition, these slide decks ask students to respond to reflection questions individually in their copy of the slide deck. They not only are able to increase understanding by making connections to complex psychology concepts but they can also go back to see their answers as they review information for course activities and assessments. Mrs. Hamzy’s students also receive a Google sheet that includes built-in fields and formulas for tracking assessment results and course progress.

This creates more student independence and allows students to see measured progress and areas of need or growth in one quick glance. By frequently documenting personal course data, students who find themselves in situations where they are facing an obstacle or failure, of sorts, can begin to see areas where they can alter their course and focus on a change in strategy for progress and growth, thus correcting previous failures and pushing forward.

While many students have the opportunity to learn practical lessons associated with experiential learning, some have thrived and begun to acquire the “grit” and perseverance necessary to push toward their goals. E-portfolios are an amazing tool for accomplishing this and for providing students with a platform for self-branding, goal setting, self-assessment, and reflection. One student who is an ideal example of utilizing digital resources for goal setting and reflection through experiential learning is Megan, a student in Kristal Holmes’ architecture course. Megan has set goals for herself related to professional architecture, design preparation, and future employment. She utilizes Google Sites to house her e-portfolio showcasing her collection of designs and floor plans as artifacts documenting her work and progress over the course of her studies.

Megan’s work with tiny house design is exemplary of how she documents her design experiences, reflects on them in her portfolio and makes new and improved designs that incorporate lessons she learns from previous architectural designs. Megan’s experiences in Mrs. Holmes’ course have also offered her the chance to develop skills and resources for her professional goals by participating in mock interviews and professional document preparation while constantly receiving feedback for improvement. All of these experiences with goal related tasks give Megan a chance to experience field specific work and tools that teach necessary skills and aid in driving her toward her destination.

Curtis Aguirre’s Spanish I students also utilize digital feedback and reflection tools as they practice using the Spanish language orally. These students use a web-based video tool called Recap where they are able to record themselves speaking Spanish and then receive video feedback concerning their recordings from their instructor and peers. Students can also record self-reflections regarding what they are working on and about their progress with course content. This feedback and reflective work are key to students seeing any challenges as areas needing focus rather than permanent set backs and failure.

Kathryn Watson’s French students are also frequently provided with opportunities to reflect on course assessments and grow through use of Poll Everywhere for informal personal and class reflection. Mrs. Watson uses this online survey tool for in-class reflections, discussions, and exit tickets assessing student feelings and understanding of course content. By allowing students to regularly utilize this tool for reflective tasks, they are being given the opportunity to think back on learning experiences and to contemplate how they dealt with previous assessments and challenges before attempting new ones.

With a true growth mindset at the forefront, anyone can find value in working through obstacles and reflecting on failure, which then facilitates independence, positive behavior changes, life-long learning, and permanent skill development. The learning process is incomplete without reflection. Rather than spending the new year resolving to learn knitting, overcome a personal fear, or lose weight, it would be beneficial to reflect on previously abandoned resolutions and begin to see failure as a temporary road block or detour pushing toward growth rather than a dead end. If we hope to see our students begin to drive themselves into the future, we must help them change views of failure and learn the “rules of the road” by discovering new perspectives and unearthing new routes along their journey to success.

Breaking Up: Rhetorically Speaking...

The exhilaration of a new relationship and the world-ending-feeling after a breakup summarize the range of emotions that occur in the daily life of a high school student. The longing for acceptance by self and others is everything as high schoolers gain a better understanding of themselves as a friend, partner, student, and job-worker. What better way to get students interested in Rhetorical Analysis than to compare it to element’s of their everyday life.

To begin, students in English III at Byron Nelson High School deconstructed one of the nation’s oldest break up letters, the Declaration of Independence. They analyzed its literary text structure which included the Preamble (introduction to the conflict which is also the claim), the Declaration (rights and beliefs), a list of grievances (specific complaints), and a counterargument (perspective from the “other side”). Next, student’s scrutinized the popular Country song from Old Dominion called “Break Up with Him” to study the tricky use of sound counterargument.

As a culminating, summative activity, students then wrote their own break up letter using the rhetorical structures and devices they’ve been studying throughout the unit. The lesson objective states “Using “The Declaration of Independence” as a model, you must “declare your independence” from something that is a problem for you: something that makes your life difficult, unhappy, or stressful. This can be a relationship with a person, a problematic object, a bad habit, or even a situation you find yourself in often. You may be as creative as you like!" Once the subject of the essay was chosen, students then had to incorporate the rhetorical appeals of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos and include at least one rhetorical device of choice; furthermore, the location of these literary devices were easily located by color-coding the corresponding statements within their essay.

Breaking Up with Anxiety

Breaking Up With Sugar

Because of its cross-curricular emphasis through incorporating Historical text in conjunction with the relevant, meaningful, and personal context of the assignment, this lesson met multiple objectives outside of the English III, 15A TEK. This meets International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)’s standard of a Creative Communicator (6D) in which “Students publish or present content that customizes the message and medium for their intended audiences.” in addition to being a Knowledge Constructor (3D) in which “Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.”

Additional examples include Breaking Up with Cats and Breaking Up with Loneliness.

Accessibility, Reflection, and Feedback with Nearpod

How does a teacher deliver a visual presentation with a broken projector? How can a presentation be viewable to ALL students in the room, no matter how close or far from the screen they are? How can a teacher with any size class gather immediate feedback from every student during a lesson, whether it is a planned question or an on-the-spot question? The answer is Nearpod!

A class of 60+ accessing a Nearpod presentation simultaneously.

Physics teacher at Byron Nelson, Courtney Toht, temporarily delivers content to two full classes at a time as she supports students for a team teacher who is out on maternity leave. Her Science classroom had the physical space for 60+ students at a time, but students at the back of the room could not view the projected presentation at the front of the room and it was difficult to gauge students' understanding for such a vast number of kids...until she started using Nearpod.

Nearpod enables the teacher to take existing presentations from PowerPoint or Google Slides and import it into Nearpod. Once in Nearpod, the teacher can embed questions in the following formats: open-ended, poll, or quiz. These can be added prior to the presentation starting as well as can be added in during the presentation as need arises.

To join a live-presentation, Nearpod generates a 5 character code that can be written on the whiteboard, shared as a clickable URL, or assigned to a class in Google Classroom. Once a student connects into a Nearpod presentation, the presentation appears on each individual student's computer; so, previously-projected content can be accessible anywhere. Better yet, there is an iPad app for Nearpod so the teacher can control the progress of the presentation while being mobile around the room. When the teacher progresses to the next slide in a live-presentation that is teacher-paced, so does the presentation on the individual student computers.

After content slides are delivered, an open-ended formative question uses accompanies the content to gauge student understanding. When a formative question appears in the presentation, a new screen appears on the student computers with the question that has been posed to the class and a space to answer the question.

Student View: Displayed Formative Question with Space to Answer

As students answer, the teacher can view submitted responses to gather on-the-spot feedback that can be used to assess learning at any given moment. The teacher view also shows the percentage of students that have answered. A setting can be changed the make the students names appear anonymous so a teacher can show all submitted answers without associating a name to the response. 

Teacher View: Formative Question Feedback

If an exemplar answer gets submitted, the teacher can choose to share a selected response which means that answer gets pushed through to be viewable on all student computers. Mrs. Toht uses this feature to gauge understanding of newly presented material and shares students' answers to help them interpret the information using student-friendly and student-generated responses. Note that once the teacher shares a response, the activity closes and students can no longer continue submitting responses.

All features shown in this post are included in the free version with the exception of having 60 students connected at once; the free version allows up to 30 students to connect at a time. Upgraded features include the ability to assign student-paced lessons as well as additional question styles such as a "Draw It" style question which allow students to use their touchscreen or mouse to draw a picture or solve an equation by showing their work as pictured below. Same as the open ended questions, the teacher can view all students submitted work and share a selected response.

Moodle and Google Classroom are great places to store the actual presentation (PPT or Google Slides) for later access. Nearpod does not replace either of these Learning Management Systems; rather, it a tool used to present the content while gathering real time feedback from every student. A report is generated in Nearpod so the teacher can access the formative information after the live presentation has ended so the data can be further used to drive instruction.

ISTE Teacher Standards: 

1C - Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes.

2D - Provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards, and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching.

21st Century Reflection

Students are taking chances and deeply reflecting at Gene Pike Middle School. In Mrs. Fitzgerald's class, her students were given one task: start a blog on Blogger and share about something you find interesting. Since all NISD students have Blogger accounts through their Google account, Mrs. Fitzgerald had them utilize this platform to ease them into the reflective world of blogging. From that simple direction, students took the initiative to begin a web-based chronological log of their thoughts outside of class. They began blogging  about everything from a project they did for a class to collections of music from their favorite video games. The students began writing, creating videos and embedding them into their blog.  Mrs. Fitzgerald is the librarian at Pike and her class is open to all 8th grade students.  This assignment was able to meet each student at their own level. They have all taken ownership over their blogs and have begun curating in numerous ways.

One of the students, Carlos, decided that he wanted to make his blog about how to defeat different levels of various video games.  He knew that his audience would enjoy learning how to get through the levels.  Since this is a blog, it is still a work in progress and you can check back later to learn even more from Carlos.

Carlos's Blog

As their blogs began to take shape, students participated in a feedback session with classmates and their teacher. Students were encouraging each other to explore topics that they can blog about.  The students are currently working on a way to embed their blogger page into their ePortfolio.

To extend the depth of their learning Mrs. Fitzgerald has encouraged the students to customize their ePortfolios as well. Alexa has begun this process. She is also one of our NISD Advocates at GPMS.  She has taken her ePortfolio and used it to help students and parents learn how to navigate through Google Sites. She is using this platform to reflect on herself as a learner and to give insight into who she is as a member of a thriving community.

Alexa's ePortfolio

Students at Gene Pike Middle School are blogging into their future!