Dissecting Frog App for High School.

The following is a blog entry from the Science Department at Sullivan Heights.  Najinder Gill critiques an app she used in her Biology 11 course.

When I found out Najinder  dissected frogs in her classroom, I asked her if she was interested in doing a virtual dissection, and being one who loves to try something new, she agreed.  We talked for a while, she signed out an ipad to look  at Frog Dissection app for the iPad and off she went.  The interesting thing about Najinder's concept was she wanted to use the app for students that missed the live dissection since students couldn't do the dissection without supervision.  But she couldn't be in two places at once (continuing on with her class and catching the student up with what was missed).  She believed this was the perfect solution to that problem.  Below is Najinder's assessment of the app and the worksheet she used with the program is linked here as well as below.  Thank you Najinder Gill for sharing out there.

FROG DISSECTION APP

The frog dissection app is a very good app to use in place of doing actual dissection.  It is an app that I will be using with my classes. Reasons why the teacher may choose to do the virtual dissection: less expensive, if student is absent on day of dissection it is an easy makeup lab, for students who can’t handle doing a dissection, more ethical, students less likely to mess up the dissection, easier clean up, ….

The app has many things available on it – dissection, background information on frogs, life cycle, videos,….  Positives of the app: includes relevant background information of frog, includes how frogs develop, the dissection is quick and there is little room for mistakes,  all the internal parts of the frog are clearly seen (which may not be the case when you do an actual dissection).  The videos are simple and good visuals to show how the digestive and respiratory systems work.  The quiz is a great way of ending the lab which not only focusses on the frog but also the lab techniques used. Sometimes it is difficult to explain to students how to cut open the frog and what tools to use so the app helps with this.

Critique: I think  students need to be guided on how to use the app and that they don’t just jump to the dissection without going through the background information first. To help with this  I have included a handout to use with the app which guides students through the app. The app doesn’t show the difference between a male or female frog.

Sometimes you don't know the effect you have on students until years later...

True story last Christmas:

While returning home to Winnipeg for a visit with my mother I had a young woman come up to me and ask if I remembered her.  She didn't expect me to remember her as I taught her in Grade 3 years ago, and her mother said that she really shouldn't bother me.  I honestly did not recognize her, it had been over 19 years since I taught in Manitoba.  But when I saw her mom, the woman she pointed to, I looked back at the young lady and said the following:

"You cut your hair!  I loved it long and curly like before.  You always loved to read books about mysteries, do you still?  You were so smart in Math and so curious in Science  You had a crush on my boyfriend who supervised one of our field trips, oh by the way I married him.  I still have one of your going away bracelets you made me" and I went on for a while about everything that I could remembered about the remarkable girl in Grade 3.  The more I talked, the more the tears started to roll down her face and the bigger the smile on her and her mother's as she watched the two of us.

When I stopped, that young woman thanked me for being such a wonderful teacher to her and told me that because I always expected the most from her (she read at a grade 9 level and I made her continue to do so in my classroom) all through her education she expected and demanded that the teachers who taught her challenged her and taught new things.  I differentiated in the classroom wit all my students.  Today that woman has a Masters in Business Administration now and works for a major company in Toronto.  She flew in to visit her mom for Christmas as well.  It was only by chance that we flew in at the same time and she saw me picking up my luggage at the Winnipeg Airport.

There are days when you're so tired you can't think straight, and days that you give you're all and yet you see no results.  But there are precious days like the one I described above that make me realize you don't always see the effect you have on children, and sometimes you do affect their lives forever.  

This story is what I remember when I'm so tired, and not sure if my students are learning what I'm teaching.  It's also why I don't say "My school" but "My students" because it's not the building that you teach in that you should have pride in, but the students that you teach and send off in the world.  

When I went back to my mother with my suitcase after talking to my former student, I look her in face and  said with great pride "That young woman was MY student in Grade 3.  Look at her now. I had a hand in that."  My mother smiled with pride at me.

Sometimes it's best to take the time to reflect and remember why you teach and recharge your energy.  Lesson for the new term.

English Survey

survey

Results of BaseData for Communicating with School web site.

The results are in with some surprises, and explanations of the data.  We got 50 parents who answered the survey.  It was amazing how many parents did not want to complete the survey which only took 2 minutes.

Excellent news that parents are using the web site an recent as well.  Although I did get two parents who personally talked to me and told me they found out about the parent teacher interviews a day before it happened and they were unaware of the changes from a PDF newsletter to the School Newsletter Blog, there was a note of the interviews on the main page, every parent did receive a magnet with all important dates (including the interviews) on it, and the sign in front of our school did have the Interviews announced.   The school also did two callouts to parents announcing this event.

Notation:  we need to advertise the Newsletter blog on the sign in front of the school to get parents to sign up for the blog emailing system, a simpler way of informing parents of what is happening in our school.  Our admin team is aware of this and are working on having parents sign up for the newsletter.

I added this question out of curiosity as well as comparison.  Close to twice the amount of parents visit our school web site because it is more relevant to them then the district site.

Notation:  Seems the district has to do the same, campaign more for parents to be aware of the changes in the district website.  I am unaware of any means they have used to do this, but I am sure it has been done.  The same website is used for the new website, so perhaps the information on district site is not relevant to many of our parents.  23 parents have been to the district site in the last two weeks, 21 have never been there.

Notation:  The PE department has made it a priority to promote their wiki of all events, schedules, sign up and data for outside coaches to follow, making sure the communication is out there to parents.  Some of the parents who said no to this question stated that they did not have a child in a sport at that time and that's why they did not go to the site.  It's important to note out of the above numbers stating who has been there most recently, the data below state and more then 62% of the people surveyed knew about the site.  Also, it is important to note that at present the PE Wiki had more then 400 hits in one time period.  See data below.  

Data form www.wiki.com for September's views

Data from October's views, these last two weeks.

 The end results were summed up in the information below, the usefulness of these sites to parents and giving us data if there is a need to change what we present on these means of communication with parents.

Excellent to know that our administration is on the right track for the use of our new school website design.

Notation:  This is a blog attached to our website, a feature that should be added to all school templates, and should be added to the program.

Finally, the final aspect of our survey asked for email addresses of parents, to be added to the growing list of followers.  The main reason for people saying no is because they already follow the school Newsletter.

Altogether the data looks solid, gives us a focus point to follow and improve.  At the next parent teacher interview we will conduct another survey.

Autonomy

Was given this video and quote at a STA training session, and it stuck.

The Definition of autonomy "Thinking for oneself in uncertain and complex situations in which judgement is more important than routine".  By Pitt & Phelan 2008.

Reflections of Grade 9 Students....

OK, I'll admit right now, he's one of my "great" students (Your a genius!!! - from Terry Small @terrysmall).  But that's not why I've chosen to share the Eportfolio blog reflection of these students.  You'll understand why after you read the blog.

When my students entered my classroom  I had a youtube video ready for them to watch.  We've been working on Social Networks in my Information Technology 9/10 classroom, hoping to teach some understanding of the negatives and positives of these tools.  We use a lot of social networking at Sullivan Heights, web classrooms, blogging portfolios, and tweeting out homework, successes and updates of our school.  The idea is to teach the students about your digital persona but also to make sure they understand that no one controls the Internet and when you put something out on the net, there's no going back.

So here's one of the videos I showed students, and below it is the blog entry I requested.  I asked students to write 100 words or more about what they learned from the video.  This entry makes me smile with pride that a student went further then just reciting was he heard or saw, he analyzed the information and came up with his own conclusions.  He extended his knowledge, and applied the learning of MySpace to Facebook.  Read below and hopefully it will make you smile as well.  He's in Grade 9.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11064451/ns/dateline_nbc/t/why-parents-must-mind-myspace/#.UHbptcU0WSo

 "   This video mainly introduced what Myspace is, and the dangers in the use of Myspace. Myspace as a social networking site is convenient and easy to use, and everyone wants an account in it (now its Facebook having the same thing happening). While friend can communicate about all sort of things on it, there are also many hidden dangers. But many teenage users are not aware of the dangers. The girl in the video, Shannon Sullivan, only thought it was her friends reading the information on her page. So she threw on everything needed to find her in person, and she "didn't thing twice about it". She put on a fake age, even though she was underaged to use Myspace. Like many other teenagers, she had no idea about the online predators stalking people like her.

    

Because her mother had settings that allowed her to see the internet use on the computer, she found out about Shannon using Myspace. She grounded Shannon for two weeks, then had her place private setting on her page. This is very fortunate compared with other parents who has not the slightest idea about things like this. Teens put on all sorts of revealing pictures and personal information about themselves, and the online predators takes advantage of this. That's why parents have to monitor the use of social networking of their teens, to protect them from harm. I believe this is very important, and applies to all social networking sites, not just Myspace or Facebook. Teens should be careful about what they put on the internet, and what they do put on should be protected by private settings."

Just to show that not all students are as proficient in writing in my classroom, the intent to show learning is still there in other examples and show just as much learning.

"      In infotech today I watched a vodeo on how myspace can be "the" site for predators. in the video, it explained how a girl signed up for myspace when she was underage she signed up, and I was thinking, who's to say that people that are under the age of 10 are signing up. and if that happens it clearly means that they know a lot less about pravicy settings. So what I am trying to say is people signing up under age makes it so much easyer for predators to find people. 

         In my opinion i think that there should be a perant part of the sign up form so if there underage, so that way kids wont sneek on websites like myspace to sign up without permission"

Remember, it's only been a month for these students, and we're still in the process of setting up the eportfolios,and understanding critical thinking and analysis but they do understand that when they blog, it is an opinion and they explain their opinion to show their learning (critical thinking skills).

Both entries make me proud.  We're on our way to expanding our learning and developing learning skills.  ;)

Gathering Data on Your School Website.

It's a little difficult to gather data when an entire school has the freedom to do research on anything they want, when individual goals are used to motivate teachers to grow and expand in their field of expertise.  It's even harder to gather baseline data when one of your goals is to build communication with your parents by using the new website development program your district has put out and the address of your website has now changed.

I'm not complaining (well maybe a little) but the challenge is there, where do you start?  For our Innovative Grant we've have a number of subjects that we're working on, a range of reasearch from going paperless to using both online free websites, wikis and twitter to communicate more fully with both students and parents, from assessment to project based planning.  We'll be doing base data in each and every form for all these areas, but not the general baseline data that the district wants because it's not applicable to our area of study that we need.

So how do you get a baseline of data for communicating with your parents when your parents are not in the school constantly and you have over 1000 students in the school (that's a lot of parents)?  You do it during Parent teacher interviews and use an IPad and a Google Form to get it done.

Our baseline started simple, asking parents is they use these sites, and asking them to register for our blog that we hooked up to the SurreySchools website.  The blog was implemented last year to replace our school newspaper as well as having the ability to update any important data to our parents inside the district our outside.  All administration have access to this blog and one of our office staff updates it in a moment notice.  The blog ranges from important information to accolades of our students and staff.  When parents sign up for the blog they get an email anytime something comes up, so they don't have to go to the site, they can read what's going on with their phone or at their work office.  No surprise, most schools are doing this.  But the goal is to now get parents to be aware of this change and to get them to sign up.

Our Base Data Survey (please do not submit the survey as you will corrupt the data) is below.  We used Google Forms for it which gives you an excel sheet as well as graphs your results for you.

 

The results of this survey will be in the next blog.

Eportfolios

Another year starting and my students are on Eportfolios again. This time we're using Webnode, a program I've been examining and using for the past two years. We 've been exploring/studying/using Eportfolios for a year now and this year's process has become easier for the initial set up. The website has a photo gallery for screen shots of work or Photoshop examples. There is a homework/assignment section, and best of all a blog section for reflection and critical thinking evaluation.

UBC had an explanation of Eportfolios and learning (http://elearning.ubc.ca/toolkit/eportfolios/) but I believe their best quote of what is reflection is the following - "thinking that enables self-awareness, personal and professional growth, and improved teaching and learning experience." I believe that students DO teach themselves when they stop and thing of what they just heard or read, and consider what their position or opinion is on this learning.

That's why I blog, to reflect on my own learning, and what I should do next to continue my path of learning. Don't we all? But more importantly, I'll be using these portfolios for assessment. See this study on this subject. 

So why am I exploring eportfolios and blogging?  Because of an entry of one of my student just this year reminding me that students who enjoy learning learn deeper then those that don't.  My next post will give more details on this.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Sick and Still Tweeting, Blogging and learning.

For the past 3 days I've been sick with the stomach flu, with massive headaches, upset stomach, and fever.  There was 3 days of bed rest, but thank goodness with my IPad.  I've been reading articles, writing blog entries, emailing my colleagues web sites that may help them with their learning goals, and more.  Does this make me sick in the head as well?

What it makes me is a lifelong learner, someone driven to continue to learn and be a better teacher.  I'm not alone in this manner.  Many of my colleagues do the same thing, tweeting others to discuss something they learned, asking for help at school, reading articles, signing out research books from our Professional Development Library, and more.  Everyone helps everyone in our school, evident in the Professional Development day yesterday, where many colleagues stepped in to help train each other, sharing their knowledge, their ideas, etc. 

That makes our school an exciting place to work at.  It also still makes me sick in the head, and still a little sick in my stomach....  Going to stop blogging now....  ;)

Individual Goals of our School

Someone Requested that I publish this again in regards to individual Goals for Professional Development for staff, so I thought I would do it again.  So here it is...

The school is on the upswing of considering goals, what the staff wish to develop this year, and where they wish to grow professionally. Teachers took some time and seriously considered their answers when filling out a questionnaire that helped guide them to what learning they wished to pursue.  It's an revised list from the first year the Professional Development committee did this last year (see this link to visit the first document).  The document was created to generate thinking, dig deep into what staff was considering doing, and also to help the Professional Development Committee put together networks at our school and outside of our school to continue the learning.  A copy was given to the Pro D committee, a list was comprised, and pairing started to happen, as well as giving out of resources online and in our school to help them with their learning.  From the data received, this Pro D we held workshops on Blogging, Twitter, and learning how to use a Document Reader. 

 The list of goals is long but when you look at it in total, there is a common theme.  Most of the research is in the manner of learning how to improve communication with students, teachers, and parents, in their assessment, their aide at home, and in their learning with new networks of teachers both inside the school and outside the school, for the purpose of building networks of learning and support for the students, with the students.  The goal is to create student ownership and pride in their learning, creating independent and confident learners.  

This does seem like a lofty goal, but one that can be achieved by many of our staff.  Below is an example of the goal sheets teachers filled out.

I hope this information helps you to change the paradigm of learning in our school.  The staff's pride in their school and in their learning is evident.

Teacher's Goal Sheets

Teacher Initiative for Professional Success –

One Step at a Time

Individual Professional Development Plan

Name: ___________________________________________________________

Date: ____________________________________________________________

1.     Who You Are Use the diagram below to briefly outline your strengths, weaknesses, interests and experience as they relate to your professional life.

Strengths	Weaknesses
Interests	Experience

2.     What You Want: Write your professional goal statement
This year I want to…

3.     Why You Want It: Provide a rationale
I want to achieve this goal so I can…

4.     How Does It Fit: Describe the connection between this goal and your teaching assignment.

5.     How You’ll Achieve It: Set a plan
To reach this goal, I will…

6.    What Will Help You: Identify allies and resources
The following can help me achieve my goal:
PEOPLE (colleagues in this school & elsewhere, parents, district personnel, other school districts, etc.)

BOOKS (don’t forget to check out our professional library and/or recommend titles)

ORGANISATIONS/OTHER

7.     Assessment
What would progress on this goal look like in terms of your teaching practice? How will you know when you have grown in your learning?  What can you show to other teachers to substantiate your growth? 

8.     Professional Experiences I Want to Have

9.     Things I Want to Do Less (Or Stop Doing) in My Teaching Practice

10. Things I Want to Do More (Or Start Doing) in My Teaching Practice

11. Things I Want to Learn About

Revised from Nicole Painchaud, Jennifer Spain, 2012  and Jim Burke, The Teacher’s Daybook, (Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH); 2012

Professional Development for Sullivan Heights

We've had a huge success story about Sullivan Heights in regards to our individual plans of Professional Development of our teachers, letting them choose what they want to work on, considering that every teacher has different strengths and weaknesses, this only makes sense to us.  Teachers are more involved, more motivated because this is what they want to learn, and through our Grant we supply them with the material and support they need to grow and help change our school environment as well as their teaching practises.

We've done a lot of work on technology in our classrooms, as well as new methods of assessment, goal orientation and a lot more.  Now we're on to the next step, seeing if what we're doing is making a difference.  The only way to do that is through assessment again, but this time of our own practises.

The question is "Has the learning that the teacher done made a difference in our school?"  Although you can sometimes see this difference right away, there could be a number of other factors that have affected the student to make the change, so this year not only are teachers setting their individual goals but they are now using the SMART technique to assess if what they are trying to accomplish is making a difference.  Goals need to be clear, attainable, and measurable.  We need to share with colleagues in our school and outside of the school.  Although we started to do this last year (with some data showing a difference in some of the teachers learning) our goal is to increase the research basis of our learning, and to prove that we are making a difference with good solid data.  This is our goal for the end of the year, to show solid data on our blogs.  Is that a good enough SMART goal for you?  ;)

See the Prezi below for our intro in September....

Assessing our Learning on Prezi

Here is our new goal sheets.