We are approaching Presentations...Finally!

We are one week away from presenting our Innovation Project, and it has proved to be really difficult to finish these products with exams right around the corner too. The students have steadily been working on business proposals, letters to our principal, speeches, designs, models, etc and I'm excited to see how they will all come together. Today, we are going to talk about how to create presentations/speeches and this is the part the students have been the most worried or scared about. There is something about speaking in front of the class that can completely cause a student to come undone. However, I am explained to them several times that if you no your stuff, then presenting is just like having a conversation with a group of friends. Hopefully that stick with them and ease their nerves a little. We shall see :)

Creating the product is proving to be really difficult!

Last week my classes moved into the actual "product creation" phase of the Innovation Project. Personally, I thought this would be the part of the project that would give them the most satisfaction. However, it has been the most difficult part of the project so far. My students appear to be frozen and unable to begin creating. Initially, I was very frustrated by our lack of progress but upon further thought I reminded myself what I was really asking them to do. I was asking my students to truly create something from scratch that I had not already set up for them with baby steps to follow. I had essentially turned their learning over to them and I should expect them to freeze.  How often as teachers do we really turn the learning over to our students? Usually, we have some controlling factor in the project and ultimately what we want them to create.

In today's class, we are going to try to "start again", and I am going to provide a little more guidance to get them going. I think by doing this I may be able to attempt to get them a little less stuck :)

Back in the Blue Room Today!

Today we are back in the "Blue Room" and the kids are super excited. My goal for today's class is for each group to have a solid plan for creation of their products by the end of class, so that when we return to the "Blue Room" on Friday they can actually work on creating their products. I'm very fortunate that our technology facilitator will be co-teaching with me today as well, so it will help while working with small groups. It can be a challenge when you are one teacher and 30 kids are going in 30 different directions and they all need help and guidance.

The biggest challenge I anticipate we will face today is getting the kids to actually "start." It can seem overwhelming when we place all of the responsibility on the student to create and give them "carte blanche." (spelling?) Since these are ninth graders, I assume they will need more prodding! I am hopeful we will get them all where they need to be :)

Getting Ready to Move into the Implementation Phase!

The class and I stepped away from the Innovation Project for the last two weeks to focus on reading Romeo and Juliet, but now we are ready to start thinking about how we are going to implement a solution to our questions. For me, this is the most exciting part because my students can start to employ their own creativity to truly be innovative.

Our goal for Wednesday's class will be to work a little on blogs and websites to upload what the students have already completed on the project. During Thursday's class, my goal is for students to start hashing out a plan for their implementation and final products, so when we return from Spring Break--they will be ready to start creating.

Before we know it, it will be the end of the year and our journey will be coming to an end. I cannot wait to see what the students create :)

Until next time!

Research is DONE!!! Yippee!!!

It has been a long two weeks in the library with my CP English 9 classes as we learned about the research process. I will admit, at the beginning of our time in the library, I was seriously thinking I was a crazy person for not limiting the students in what they could research-- like we have done in the past. Typically, I would provide the students with a list of topics I knew for sure our library had resources on, so I could easily manage the research process and effectively move my students through the various stages with very little hiccups along the way.  However, this year I came to a realization that by limiting my students too much, I was really negating what I wanted them to learn about research--the research itself. If I continued to do the preliminary work for them, then I was the only person getting better at choosing topics and evaluating resources. Furthermore, when my students and I embarked on this "Innovation Project", I allowed them to pursue questions they wanted to answer, so there really was no going back at that point. 

I'm so glad I didn't limit them now. What I witnessed happening in the library this last two weeks was far more than I ever expected. Each day we were in the library learning about locating resources, and then writing thesis statements and outlines, taking notes, and finally putting it all into a paper was thrilling and impressive. Students who had been shy or reluctant suddenly had the "ah ha" moments and became frontrunners in my class and experts to help the other students. I saw my students taking ownership of their own learning and taking command of the research process. Now, don't think it was all rainbows and sunshine. There are always some who struggle and there are still some who haven't quite finished, but overall I feel like everyone learned something and is "getting there." That is all I could have hoped for with 9th graders embarking on research for the first time. 

This week we will be working on updating our blogs about the research process and uploading completed research papers to our websites. 

I'm excited to move into our 3rd phase of the project which is the "Implementation" stage where the kids will finally get to design their final products in an attempt to answer their "Innovation Project Question." I cannot wait to see how they solve their issues! 

More to come. 

We Have Officially Begun Our Time in the Library!

So, for English teachers, time spent teaching students how to conduct research and then use that research to write any type of persuasive paper can be both exciting and the most frustrating experience all in one. In today's age, teaching students to research is more complicated because Google exists, therefore, students don't really understand the need or even possess the desire to a certain extent to check out a book or even use an academic database. It becomes even trickier when you have a class full of students who have come up with their own topics, and as a teacher you aren't really sure if they will even find research on their topics. Hence has been the struggle we have been enduring this week in English 9. 

But, today we made a breakthrough.  I could finally start to see the wheels turning slowly in each student as they have his or her "ah ha" moment where the idea of what you want to research starts to connect with what you actually find research on, and then how you can take that research and devise your own "plan of action." As a teacher, I did the proverbial "sigh of relief" today when I finally started to see all the pieces come together. Of course, like with any class, we still have some who are struggling and behind, but there are fewer of those students then there was yesterday. I will count that as a step in the right direction.  

My hope and my goal for the rest of this week will be to show the students how to take notes from the research they have found, cite that information correctly. If I can accomplish that by the end of Friday, I will feel like we have had a successful week! 

Getting Ready to Move into the Research Phase!

We are about 1 week away from moving into the research phase of our innovation projects. In this phase, the kids are going to learn to take their "Driving Questions" and persuasively convince an audience that their chosen problems are valid while also learning proper researching techniques and paper writing skills. By the end of our two weeks in the library all students will have learned how to effectively write an outline with a thesis statement, take notes, choose credible resources, write a persuasive essay and then edit their essays. We'll see what happens!

Presenting Elevator Pitches in the Blue Room

On Friday, 3rd and 4th blocks presented their elevator pitches in our school's collaboration room a.k.a (the blue room). All of my students want to move my classroom into this really cool workspace. I agree, I love it as well. However, we didn't just have fun in the blue room on Friday, but each group presented their "elevator pitches" for their Innovation Projects. For many of the freshman, this was the first time they were presenting in front of the group with very little for notes. I know a lot of the students were nervous, but they did a fantastic job. Every group was so diverse in their topics and interests; I am even more excited to continue with this project, and see the different ways they are going to tackle these problems.

Wow! The Blue Room is So Cool.

Today we embarked on creating our "Elevator Pitches" to propose topics for the innovation projects. To get a change of perspective we took a "min field trip" to Magnolia campus and used Mrs. Waid's "Blue Room" otherwise known as a collaboration room. The students were immediately engaged when they learned they would be sitting on bean bag chairs, exercise balls, and futons. The kids quickly found a spot for their group to work and after a brief revisit to the assignment guidelines, they were on their way to creating their 60 second elevator pitches.

It was exhilarating to see the students start to use all of the materials they had at their fingertips from their laptops (Google Drive and research), to white boards, to their phones, to just plain good, open, productive conversation. I continued to ask myself during classes today why I don't do this everyday. I'm ready to swap out the desks in my room for futons and beanbags :) I know that's not practical for every day class, but today's class was a lot more indicative of what the "real world" is going to be for these kids, and I want to start bringing that into my classroom.

The students have to present their elevator pitches during Friday's class in 60 seconds or less. I'm excited to see what they have in store.

Setting up Google Sites and Blogs...Yikes!!!

Today in class was more of a housekeeping day when it came to the Innovation Project. With the help of our wonderful technology facilitator Tracey, we worked our way through setting up Google Sites for  all of my students and then blogs using blogger.  Although this process can be very frustrating when you are trying to command a group of 30, we did it and now everyone has a Google Site and a blog of their very own. I'm excited to see how these portfolios grow over the course of the semester.

An Idea Factory...What???

This is exactly what I heard from my students when I sprung this idea on them last Tuesday in class. At this point, I had told them nothing regarding research or this big, innovative project I was thinking about embarking on with them, so when I told them in class we were going to create some lists of potential problems and solutions to those problems, they thought I was crazy. But, like all great ideas of seemingly great ideas, we jumped in with both feet.

I gave the students a few guidelines for their topic lists. I said their topic had to be "problem-solution" based. I did not care how big or small, public or private the problem was, but it needed to be something they felt they could learn more about and possibly solve. To be honest, I wasn't sure my students would come up with a great deal because I had been so vague in my instructions, but boy was I WRONG. By the time class ended, they had filled all of my whiteboards with ideas/problems they wanted to pursue. I cannot wait to move on to the next stage of the project---Project Proposals!!!

     

Embarking on a New Way of Learning!

I'm not sure if I'm being an ambitious teacher or just plain crazy, but I've decided to overhaul the current research project I have been using in English 9 for the last two years and start something new. Although our current research project is very creative and engaging for research, I feel like it doesn't really hit all of the 21st Century learning skills I want to address, nor does it give my students a great deal of choice in what they want to learn about. So, I have taken to Twitter which is my new source for innovative ideas, and I recently stumbled across Kevin Brookhouser and his 20% project. Needless to say, I was intrigued to learn more about this idea that was quickly finding its way into our classrooms.

After reading about this new and innovative way of teaching, I have decided I need a similar project in my own classroom. I need to give my students more voice and choice in what they are learning. So, I guess you can say I am taking the leap and letting go of some control in the hopes that my students will become more engaged and innovative life long learners.

So, we are going to embark on this journey, and I will use this blog to track our progress. Check back in frequently to see how we are doing.

Mrs. Davala