I've seen a lot of MYP Design teachers stressing out online and wondering how their students will work at home. For our Grade 8s we are postponing our animation unit, and instead doing a unit all about the current Coronavirus. In this unit students have to identify a problem with being locked in - this could be anything from not getting enough exercise, to running out of fresh food. Students will have to use the resources available to them to make their solution.
This is a very real design situation and problem, and I am excited to see what they come up with. Some additional things: Students will be encouraged to use their family as their target audience, but could also text/email/call of other people locked in (their friends). At the end they will be encouraged to take action by sharing their ideas/plans online.
Some things to note:
How wonderful would it be if our young designers used this global problem to really innovate and come up with solutions? I would love for other schools to also run this project - then we can maybe one place where we can share examples of student ideas? Let me know if this is something you might use!
0 Comments
On Friday afternoon we got the email - school will be closed till April 20th, with us starting online learning on Wednesday. I've used a lot of technology with my students before and my last job, was mostly tech integration. I have confidence with my technology use, but want to make sure I keep pushing myself to try new things...
SO...I recorded a bunch of videos, in 'character', as Doctor Dutton and Ms Lenny. In this videos I get my students to learn about the Coronavirus and to teach Ms Lenny! Some of the activities:
The videos are totally dorky! While school is closed, I will have a bunch of activities with my students where they have to record videos and we will also be doing some video conference calling... I know that in middle/high school students can be terribly self-conscious and hate this...so I wanted to role model myself. I don't really like the way I look or the way I sound, but I want to show students that it doesn't really mater. Hopefully this will make them less self-conscious when they see me being a total dweeb!
One of my worries about online learning is that our classes will lack the human interaction that students need. I am going to make sure that instead of using other people's videos, I will record my own when appropriate. When using other people's videos, I will use EdPuzzle, to drop in questions and make it more personal/interactive. Of course, we will also have video calls during class time (though mostly it will be check in/instructions, then students work, while I help them one on one, then a class check in at the end of our 90 minute lesson).
My students will be completing this activity on ClassCraft. I use Classcraft all the timeand often create extra-credit, self-paced activities for students in their quests. I blogged about ClassCraft usehere.
Last week ClassCraft announced they are making their pro accounts free till the end of the year! β If you have Classcraft, click here to make a copy of my quest, (it will be available in the market place soon)
As much as I love ClassCraft and recommend it, I know you won't all want to use it...so I made two other options.
I put together a short homeroom activity which has students think about how the internet has influenced dance. For example, you can now learn for free online. You can be inspired by dancers all over the world. The session obviously also talked about Fortnite and TicToc!
In part of the session students watched the video "βIn the Internet age, dance evolves ..."
On the last page it encouraged the students to teach their homeroom teacher a dance from TikTok or Fortnite... Here is the presentation. Feel free to use with your students.
I made an activity for Grade 7 homeroom students. This will take place over multiple classes, with students coming up with a mini project to help us get to know members of our community better.
The video was inspired by this video, where strangers are invited to sit in a ball pit - the larger balls have various prompts, including β"Share three things on your bucket list" and "Talk about an experience that changed your life".
Students should come up with their own ideas in groups. It could be anything from prompts for students to discuss in our five minute morning advisory session, through to post-it notes on lockers. Here is the presentation. Feel free to use with your kiddos.
I created an activity for my Grade 7s last week. This was done in homeroom, and replaced a digital citizenship lesson I had previously planned (I think they had a few too many and they were losing impact/relevance).
This session was focussing on the question "Would you move to Mars". The activities had a focus on social and critical thinking skills. They were also able to nominate one student at the end who they thought would make the best astronaut/Martian! Here a link.
ALSO a bonus music video, recommended by one of my excellent grade 6 Design students, who is also one of robotics club members and regularly in charge of robotics club playlist! Always recommending the best Hindi songs!
I've been chatting a lot with my colleague Julie Carl about conceptual understanding. Also been thinking a lot about the importance of transfer, after some points raised by the ever-thought provoking Adrian von Wrede-Jervis. Although the chart shared here has helped me, mainly because I can clearly see which subjects share key concepts, I know it is not the most visually appealing information - therefor, I made my partner make me a poster which shares this information in a better way! I'll be working on some soon to help with transition between PYP and MYP, and also some to look at concepts shared between all the programmes. Here is the link to the poster (two versions)
Next week is Mother Language Day!
We are actually celebrating two days early on the Wednesday, as this day we already have a disruptive time-table (we have a four period day, first two periods are Personal Project Presentations, and the fourth period is the exhibition - so Grade 6-10 will be off time-table a lot! Our third period 6-9 go to normal classes, but may be doing mother language activities). As this is our first year celebrating, I have put together a long buffet of activities/resources. A teacher can pick which activities they do. They can also choose to spend the whole 90 minute period doing these activities, or just five minutes at the start/end. I'm putting the ball in the teachers court. Also as we have had some disruption, due to the storms and our ACER testing moving dates, I know that people are tight on time! Mother Language Day Activities. My presentation is divided into two sections. One is about students mother tongues and the other section is about endangered languages! Here is the presentation. Feel free to make a copy and use in your schools.
A little bonus. I pulled the slides about language and literature and language acquisition from a post I did about "Bringing TOK into the MYP". This could also be useful for mother tongue day.
|
Archives
June 2023
|