Elaine+S.+Early+Adopter

These are my reflections on what's been going on with me from August - November, 2013
[|http://learnoutloud.edublogs.org/2013/11/04/doing-more-or-doing-some-things-differently/#comment-71]

Diving Deeper:
This year I would like to dive deeper into how I use the class time freed up by having my students watch T ake Home Lessons (Flipped Lessons). **Specifically, I would like to have one class every two weeks that is set up as centers where students can rotate between stations where they practice grammar skills (with immediate feedback), listening comprehension skills (with immediate feedback), speaking skills (with a partner / small group), reading & writing skills.** The challenges / opportunities for personal growth I see for me and my students include:

Actually thinking through and setting up the various activities I need for each "session". That includes - - how to set up online practices that provide immediate feedback and actually getting the set up work done. - Choosing listening comprehension activities and setting them up. (teacher) - Designing my classroom physical set up to accommodate these centers. (teacher) - Designing a checklist of some sort for students to use as their guide of what they need to get done and their "turn in" document to me to show that they have completed their stations. (teacher) - Choosing speaking, reading and writing activities for each "session" (teacher) - develop self discipline to work through stations in a genuine and diligent manner (student) - develop ownership of learning that compels the student to complete assigned tasks to gain knowledge, not just to complete a check list. (student)

**Challenge for the next week:** Investigate tools / apps that allow for tailor-made practice with immediate feedback. Ideas already - Quizlet, Skyward, Canvas, ActiveInspire with voters.

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Destination Postcard:

__**Elaine's Six Word Memoir - Sept. 2013**__ STRETCH THINK TRIED TIRED FLOP SUCCESS

Name:
 * Campus:Stratford
 * Grade Level(s):9th & 10th ( mostly)
 * Discipline:French and Spanish
 * Topic:Student choice in demonstrating mastery / development in oral and written presentations.
 * Draft a focus question and subquestions, that include student learning, and be prepared to revise these throughout the challenge
 * Search for existing resources (articles, websites, blogs, videos, etc.) - post below and be sure to add them to your campus Diigo
 * RESOURCES:
 * Jigsaw notetaking and sharing of resources
 * Individually, design a student resource, activity type, or project to try in the classroom over the next month to test. Then, get feedback from partners.
 * Try out resource, activity type, or project during the month(s), documenting plan, process, execution and reflection and collect student work samples.
 * Focus Question: How does a student generated presentation demonstrate their mastery of a certain skill set?
 * ===== How do they know what to include in their presentation, how much, how long, etc.? =====
 * When it comes time for my students to demonstrate their progress / mastery of a certain topic(s), how will I help them learn to choose their own way of making this presentation? Will we work together to generate presentation ideas, things to include, criteria for evaluation?
 * How will I evaluate work that is coming to me in many different shapes and sizes?


 * An Opportunity in Overalls**

How is your journey like that of a storyteller? Of a researcher?
 * My journey is like that of a story teller whose story never quite finishes and whose plot is constantly changing. It's a tough story to tell, because it is difficult to synopsize 7 months of work with one story. I start at the beginning - with my first attempt of student demonstration of mastery (which was pretty much a flop) and then progressed through my variations on that theme. Lots of frustrations, ups and downs along the way. I'm currently working on a demonstration of mastery activity with my French students - I may be getting close to getting it right this time. This chapter of my story may be culminating, but I'm sure there will be more rewrites in the future.
 * My journey is like that of a researcher because I started with a single idea and have had to figure out what to do with all the tangents that sprung up along the way. I have run trials that failed totally but provided a stepping stone for my next attempt. I have researched and gotten advice from others on what to try next. Progress had been made, but the experiment is not over. In fact, I think this is an experiment that never ends. The research will be ongoing.

What question did you start out to find answer(s) to? How does a student generated presentation demonstrate their mastery of a certain skill set?


 * What tweaks, edits, modifications have you made to your focus question? I think my initial question is still the one I want to ask - even having now "completed the process" once!
 * February - my initial question is still the one to ask - I just didn't realize that working out the process would involve so many attempts!
 * February 2014 - I still like my initial question "How does a student generated presentation demonstrate their mastery of a certain skill set?". I have just had to realize that I'm not really interested in doing a presentation that focuses on every skill they have every acquired in my class, but on a sub-set. Their presentation will reflect all of their prior knowledge, but their focus and my focus has to be smaller to be manageable.
 * What question(s) remain? My question that remains from my 1st time through is "How will I evaluate the work that is coming to me in different shapes and sizes. I am to the evaluation stage and am really having a hard time "judging" the wide array of work that has come my way (especially because I'm a little disappointed in the quality).
 * February - I've made progress on the evaluation and the quality by still allowing for student choices, but putting in a few more guidelines and check points along the way.
 * February 2014 - After several attempts at this student selected demonstration of mastery, I have gotten better at evaluating their work, because I have gotten better at assigning the work and narrowing their focus along the way. Too, too broad = too, too hard to manage and then evaluate.
 * What new questions have surfaced as a result of your exploration this far? Lots of new questions - In fact, more questions after the fact than before: How can I help students make good choices as to their way of demonstrating mastery - type of project, work alone or with partner / group, etc. Did I leave this too wide open? How can I help students do better quality work - better presentation, better content, etc. How much time is the right amount of time? Did I not do adequate groundwork that has resulted in the mediocre body of work that I have now received? How critical should I be in evaluating? Did I weigh this assignment too heavily? Have I chosen the wrong career path? (It's too late!)
 * February - Since my last journal entry, I have worked on attempting to answer the questions above.
 * Way of demonstrating mastery - I have narrowed the field some on what type of project and whether to work alone or not. Rather than making it wide open every time, I vary the opportunities along the way. I think I did leave it too wide open on my first attempt. February 2014 - I have continued to get better at this - more options within a narrower scope, rather than a huge wide scope with huge wide options.
 * How can I help students do better quality work - more check points along the way, use of peer editing, more up front involvement even though they are still making the decisions. February 2014 - I have pretty much continued the practices discussed earlier - and, in looking back at recent products, I think the quality has, indeed, improved. Yea!
 * Adequate groundwork - needed more - have done more - we'll see if results improve. February 2014 - You live and learn. The groundwork has become easier because I'm more used to doing it and I know more what to expect.
 * How critical in evaluating? - I need to be more critical with written / composition aspects and stay about the same on speaking component. February 2014 - I have read more and more recently about being less critical about perfect pronunciation (focus on communication). So, I've already embraced that idea somewhat. I have been more involved with progress along the way - hopefully teaching along the way - and quality of work seems to have improved. In other words, the more involved along the way I am, the better the work - maybe that's win-win.
 * Weight of assignment - appropriate February 2014 - Still good.
 * Wrong career path - nope. February 2014 - still nope

As a researcher:

What are you measuring? Spoken / written development / mastery of the use of reflexive verbs in the present tense.
 * What I am measuring has changed along the way based on what we are studying at the time - have tried student driven mastery demonstration in both my French and Spanish teachers.
 * What patterns are surfacing?
 * high achievers and students who hold themselves to high standards continued to do so
 * time management challenges
 * students not following criteria that were given to them
 * drawbacks of group work - not everyone carrying load
 * Difficulties on getting technology turned in and viewable!
 * What themes are emerging?
 * after class discussion of options - teacher should/could narrow the field somewhat - more direction
 * should have practiced this on a smaller scale rather than starting out with a culminating project - should have measured development before mastery
 * Even with student choices - things won't be perfect - for them or for the teacher
 * What does your data suggest?
 * not grade these projects overly critically
 * scale back next attempt at this to measure progress/development - not a major project undertaking
 * more required check-ins with teacher

As a learner:
 * Where have you allowed yourself to be vulnerable in this process?
 * You make yourself vulnerable every time you try something new. I have had to allow myself to fail, figure out how to deal with the failure, learn from the failure and try again.
 * How are you allowing yourself, your professional learning to be 'seen'?
 * I share a lot with my department and every time it comes up anywhere. I shared my limited use of technology with other teachers at the TECHbytes in-service day - limited audience, but I thought it was productive.
 * In what way(s) have you found the courage to be 'imperfect'?
 * You have to be willing to not be perfect - even flop - to change your way of thinking. You no longer have to be the only source of knowledge and ideas.
 * What //a-ha!//moments, elements of a 'spiritual awakening'/"breakdown" have you experienced? What might these insights suggested to you?
 * A couple of a-ha moments along the way. The first one happened before I ever got started with this group when I realized I wanted to try new things in my teaching - with my students. Another was when I realized student driven demonstration of mastery DID NOT mean no controls, check points, etc.

What story is unfolding from your research?
 * There is no end to the story - lots of chapters.

> === ===
 * === Resources: [|Univ of minnesota]===
 * Activity: We don't have a lot of time before our next meeting, and I don't have a language usage/ pronunciation assignment before next get-together. I do have a pronunciation evaluating their Audioboo - of course, they will get the rubric in advance of the final submission of their Audioboo. Then, we get to the next oral presentation project (which typically involves a language usage component and pronunciation component) we will have already done this process once - on one aspect of the evaluation process - the pronunciation. It will be a good first step toward helping the kids figure out what they need to be working on without all of the information coming from me.
 * sorsbye.French-Daily Routine.Round 1
 * sorsbye.French-Daily Routine.Round 2
 * sorsbye.student demonstration of development-mastery.Round 3