JonesK_PPPBL_2012_13

= 2014-2015: A Study in Documentary: In what ways can mastery of modern literacy skills and curricular objectives be demonstrated through the publication of student designed and created artifacts? =



The guiding principles of the 2014-15 school year are:

 * ===== For very every significant learning objective, the mastery of which will be documented by some student designed, executed, shared and assessed artifact; =====
 * ===== To the greatest extent possible, these artifacts will be competed collaboratively - every attempt will be made to expand the concept of collaboration beyond the particular class period, class offering, campus course, district, and other geographical/cultural boundary. =====
 * ===== All student products will be presented in a public forum - classroom/campus events, extracurricular public event, social media publication, etc. =====

**Working definition of modern literacy:**
==**//The ability to read, write, speak, and listen, and use numeracy and technology, at a level that enables individuals to express and understand ideas and opinions, to make decisions and solve problems, to achieve their goals, and to participate fully in their community and in wider society. Achieving literacy is a lifelong learning process.//**== // [|Advance Literacy Houston] //



Day 1

 * 1) === Introduce the course requirements, ongoing weekly assignments - Assign Readers READ! Reader Log - 5 C's - Critical Thinking ===
 * 2) === Introduce Art- Artifacts = Artificial - Natural vs. Man Made ===

Day 2

 * 1) === Makers MAKE! ===
 * 2) === Introduce Writers Free & Wild! Assign - 5 C's - Creativity ===
 * 3) === Artifact Concrete vs. Abstract - Concrete Examples - ID elements present, examine the purpose of each, examine the effect of the elements working together - What do these elements add to the whole? ===

Day 3

 * 1) === Introduce Vocabulographers, explain "processing" a word, and assign 2 words: genre and attribute; 5 C's Collaboration ===
 * 2) === Analyze a ===
 * 3) === Review the process: ID elements, Examine the Job of each element, examine the effect of each on the whole ===

Day 4

 * 1) ===Artifact Experience: Individual - Maker Space Process - student selected design, materials, process - Artifact Production===
 * 2) ===Presentation - what & why===

Day 5

 * 1) ===Debrief of individual creative process===
 * 2) ===Artifact Experience: The Tower Collective - Play Dough + Spaghetti + String + Rubber Bands - Tallest - Freestanding===
 * 3) ===Rubric - Everyone included, discussion, conflict resolution, dealing with failure - (notice that Winning is not assessed)===

PBL, Theme, and iMovie Trailer Templates! It started in June with a PBL workshop and I had to decide how I would implement PBL AND deliver instruction tied directly to the curriculum. In the past this "AND" was the key to my failure. The projects were top down and although they had some kid-friendly cool and independent choice within them, they were heavy on process and task compliance and short on creativity and ownership.  I couldn't restrain my BIG picture view and settled on a literacy clinic approach that would Flip the Flipped Classroom model - students teaching students. Yes, it would necessarily involve the curriculum, but even as I loved the notion of expanding the definition of literacy into an essential question that would drive delivery of the curriculum, there seemed something missing: a luster, a punch.... pizzazz !  Off to ISTE for the edtech overload of all edtech overloads! Head swimming with this idea and that, psst, psst, over hear, do THIS, no, do THAT! So with a mind full of mush, I wander into yet another session...prepared for glazed, cynical overload.  iMovie Trailers - I am thinking this might be an attractive bridge from mundane curriculum delivery to genuine student engagement. The session was based on the literal lack of bells, whistles, and tweaks necessary to deliver a powerful student expression. The canned and constrained aspect of the iMovie Trailer templates was THE reason this was an attractive project. The storyboards are presented with time of clip and suggested titles based on a genre - romantic, action, adventure, scary. There is no ability for the students to alter the template in terms of the time of the shot or to rearrange clip segments. However, students were absolutely to improvise and improve the suggested shots.

Early Adopter: Inquiry & Design Challenge
**6 Word Memoir**: Passion, Creativity, Expansion, Depth, Play, & Symphony
 * 2013_2014 **





Safety in the Knowledge that Knowledge is free and accessible; The safety in the understanding that there is value in sharing knowledge and working together for the purpose of added value; Internalizing that the value of a well rounded education lies not in providing answers, but in forming questions - Why Not ?s being the most valuable; Internalizing the understanding that "Thinking Outside the Box' is not just a catch phrase or an add on to learning, but it IS learning; Creativity may be an innate quality, but it must be nurtured, taught, and practiced; Understanding that waiting for the education system to adopt a 4 C approach is insanity; students must push tghe system to adapt to them;
 * Soft Skills for Students**

Questions to consider:
 * Technology Pragmatist - ** Larry Cuban (Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom. // Cambridge: Harvard University Press) //
 * From Cuban's perspective, what changes in an educational setting should be considered in order to seamlessly integrate technology, pedagogy, and content? Hardware, training with accountability, professional appraisal accountability
 * According to Cuban, nearly 8 out of 10 public school teachers own and regularly use personal computers. Why, then, do most teachers resist employing technologies to reach beyond existing practices? How is this different from using the same tools to sustain existing patterns of teaching, or to simply improve delivery? Intractable schedules, unreliable technology (Insufficiency and unfamiliarity), irrational pedagogical focus on testing (may be my editorial)
 * Cuban rejects common claims that lack of access to tools & resistance to training are the primary causes for the gap between the promise of revolutionary classrooms and the reality. Instead, he considers tool **reliability**,**complexity** and **contextually constrained choice** when examining this issue. Please explain what he means by this. **Reliability** must be tied to training and familiarity - we can't expect the tools to work initially, we must use them to identify and work around the Bugs...there are always bugs. Differentiation is easy to say and very difficult to manage with a small number of units - BYOD may solve this, but if a teacher is letting reliability prevent them from using tools, they are likely not comfortable with BYOD
 * **Complexity** -
 * ** Contextually Constrained Choice **
 * Considering Cuban’s suggestions for change, what impact might a learning community have on efforts to embed technology to //transform// practice?

Questions: There is a disconnect between a teachers use and reliance on technology between their personal lives and practice vs, their use of technology in their classrooms. If this is true for you, why do you suppose that is the case?

Cuban uses reliability, complexity, and context complexity as 3 major reasons for the above posed gap in practice. Reliability has always been issue even if we are talking inadequate copies of handouts or functional pencil sharpeners or overhead projector bulbs an transparency copies. Reliability is a function of administrative support, but it also is a function of familiarity -

Destination Postcard 2013_2014 My desired destination is essentially the same as it was last year. However, the path is slightly altered in that there is much greater congruence with the learning model and the curriculum. I am more committed than ever to a PPPBL (Passion/Problem/Project Based Learning) approach, but I am equally committed to marrying this approach with a student owned, student created tutorial model to demonstrate content mastery of curricular objectives. My prior failures in this endeavor were largely the result of a futile attempt to pound the "project" square peg into the curricular round hole. The curriculum is divided into four nine week grading period. Each of the four nine weeks has one or more genre foci: 1)Fiction & Poetry; 2) Poetry/Drama and Informational Text - (Expository and Procedural); 3) Persuasive Text; and 4) Story. Mastery of each 9 week curricular focus will be demonstrated through a PPPBL based public performance: Movie Trailer Academy Awards Night, Poetry Slam Performance, TEDsfms, Global Debate Team, Convince Me! Campaign, and Story World.

My focus is to facilitate a student product driven workshop, the products of which have clearly discernible and straightforward connection the curriculum. I have no hard or soft ware limitations. There are no administrative constraints. Unlike in previous years, I seem to have the students interested in the possibilities.The only barrier that I see is doing the considerable amount of leg and heart work necessary to make the vision a reality.

Next Step:

This week I receive the equipment requested to facilitate video production on a number of levels: tutorial production, Movie Trailers, Short Films, Poetry Performances, TED Talks, Dramatizations, Debates/Speeches, and Public Performances. Though I have talked a good game, I hope to make it begin to sink into the students' souls that this approach can really work!

Next Steps - October 2013. The focus for the next few weeks will be to facilitate the production of the SFMS Movie Trailer Academy Award Night on October 23rd.

Destination Postcard:

The essential question for this year is **"How can students own the demonstration of content mastery?"**  To arrive at some answers, I hope to: 1) Create a learning environment that is a model of consistent genuine engagement; 2) Deliver effective, data driven instruction such that students have a deep, measurable, and broadly applicable understanding of content objectives; 3) Facilitate the operation of the learning environment in a manner that ensures students have innovative opportunities to acquire that level of understanding;  4) Provide students the freedom, the tools, and the skills to design and effectively present their own methods and means to demonstrate content mastery.

Name: Kenneth Jones
 * Campus: Spring Forest Middle
 * Grade Level(s): 7 & 8
 * Discipline: English Language Arts 8, Digital Media Literacy 7-8
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Topic: In what ways can students become owners of
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**Focus**: How can students own the demonstration of content mastery?
 * ** Sub-Questions **
 * 1) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What constitutes genuine engagement in the learning process?
 * 2) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How can data be used both efficiently and effectively to increase the rigor of inquiring and deepen understanding?
 * 3) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How can one measure if content mastery is achieved in a given content area?
 * 4) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How can one measure if content mastery is broadly applicable to other predictable content areas and unpredictable real world situations?
 * 5) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What constitutes an innovative learning opportunity and how and by whom is this determination made?
 * 6) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How does one provide for student ownership of learning and maintain rigorous standards?
 * 7) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How does one determine the student's readiness for ownership of content mastery demonstration?
 * 8) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What skills are necessary and what steps are needed to scaffold or release students into ownership of content mastery?
 * 9) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How can one develop lessons on skills and opportunity "steps" while balancing the demands of curriculum delivery?
 * 10) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How and by whom are the types of products or artifacts that students can use to demonstrate mastery determined and assessed?

How is your journey like that of a storyteller? Of a researcher?
 * An Opportunity in Overalls**

What question did you start out to find answer(s) to?
 * "How can students own the demonstration of content mastery?" **
 * What tweaks, edits, modifications have you made to your focus question?
 * // I am thinking that perhaps this is not the right question. I think I have learned, rather, am learning that the question I am really grappling with is "What steps do I take to create the environment to facilitate students taking ownership of their (individualized) content mastery?" //
 * What question(s) remain? // How to integrate the demands of what I consider a bloated curriculum across all courses into a more Project Based, Student Owned approach. I have always assumed that if I merely "opened the gate" into a new approach pasture, the students would follow not only without resistance, but with enthusiasm. This has not been the case this year as it has in years past. I think my lead question needs to be revised....How do you find student's passions? //
 * The student ownership is the forest - what are the trees? If the forest is the environment in which students own their mastery of content then the trees are the students. // What gets them excited? How can you match learning and passions? //
 * What is in or about the forest that hinders the tree? The growing area the trees must occupy in order to survive and then to grow and thrive. This is a competition among precious and very limited resources.
 * What are the roots of the tree?
 * What is it in the student that prevents this?
 * What do I as the forest manager, tree doctor, and root simulator...DO?
 * What new questions have surfaced as a result of your exploration this far?

As a researcher: What are you measuring? // Student courage to step outside the curricular boxes that they are forced to live in. //
 * What patterns are surfacing? // One step forward, 2-3 steps back! //
 * What themes are emerging? // It is still very much about the size and capacity of the plate.... //
 * What does your data suggest? // That PBL cannot work in an isolated curricular box. //

As a learner:
 * In what way(s) has your professional perception been expanded? I am thinking it is being shrunk
 * How are you allowing yourself and your authentic, real, professional learning to be 'seen'? No, I am not.
 * In what way(s) have you found the courage to be 'imperfect'?
 * How do you define vulnerability in the context of our work?What about this process makes you feel vulnerable?
 * What strategies are you using through this process that might benefit your students as well?
 * What **//a-ha!//** moments, or elements of a 'spiritual awakening'/'breakdown' have you experienced? What might these insights suggested to you?
 * What **//a-ha!//** moments, or elements of a 'spiritual awakening'/'breakdown' have you experienced? What might these insights suggested to you?

What story is unfolding from your research?
 * // In depth knowledge of the curriculum across the school year is an absolute KEY? This year we had a new curriculum and I must be honest that I did not spend the time to see it as a whole, I focused on it in piecemeal fashion - 1 grading period at a time. There are Powerful forces at play to so focus. //
 * // I need to delve into "Small Steps" as more than a catch phrase, but as a pedagogical approach //
 * // Breaking down the walls of the classroom not only in terms of distance or global learning, but of our curricular boxes is of paramount importance. I want to prove that this can be done. But I at present, I am solidly in the corner that the deck is decidedly stacked against this approach. //

**Resources**:
 * Documentation & Reflection - http://balancedtech.wikispaces.com/Documentation+and+Reflection+Prompts
 * Inquiry - http://balancedtech.wikispaces.com/Inquiry
 * Resources: search for existing resources (articles, websites, blogs, videos, etc.) - please be sure to add them to our [|Diigo]
 * []


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1.[[file:GSL for R&R K-8 Kit excerpt.pdf]]
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2.[[file:Promoting_Engagement.pdf]]
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3.[[file:LoTi_HEAT.pdf]]
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">4. [[file:NETS for Student 2007_EN.pdf]]
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">5. [[file:NETS for Teachers 2008_EN.pdf]]


 * Activity:
 * Round_1 Digiteen
 * Round_2_Digiteen 2
 * Round_3
 * Round_