tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77381374396996471052024-03-04T20:20:16.560-08:00Renard's QuestMrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-61153064023218450252019-08-09T06:29:00.002-07:002019-08-09T06:29:32.566-07:00Changing the Game 3: The Leap<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghH8Ksjah1nxMYWyHIgFOQWTTukJh6UuK8EYsJPJ-o8BNUISr8WywU1ZhOuZYuHpFVkwnq4en86X59XKHd_wiWwXnteUTlHymg4FdG-f5XhcBmnjL_wCaS12isy5mCDt-N5BpYWolrIK4/s1600/Changing+the+Game+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghH8Ksjah1nxMYWyHIgFOQWTTukJh6UuK8EYsJPJ-o8BNUISr8WywU1ZhOuZYuHpFVkwnq4en86X59XKHd_wiWwXnteUTlHymg4FdG-f5XhcBmnjL_wCaS12isy5mCDt-N5BpYWolrIK4/s400/Changing+the+Game+%25282%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In a period of three years, I have become aware of and begun to incorporate three key practices. Obviously, gamification, which adds such a sense of fun to my room that I will likely use elements of it for the rest of my career. The second is mastery learning, in which we work with students, provide feedback and grow toward mastering a concept. This past year, I attempted the use of the Grid Method from the Teach Better Team (@teachbetterteam on Twitter) in math. All students showed good growth and some made gains were mind boggling. </span></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-9ae601ac-7fff-c7b0-e6fc-6b9be264bcc2" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The third is the one that has challenged me the most: personalized learning. As someone who started his career as my students favorite cartoon character, I was the quintessential sage on the stage. We did groups and stations but I was most comfortable with command of the whole class. One, two, three, eyes on me. However, over the last 12 years I have shifted more and more away from that. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So, we now have the Sci-Fighters Academy. Where students enter a science fiction world where they have a tight schedule, but anything can happen.</span></span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Students will engage in Vocabulary Sparing (<a href="https://renardsquest.blogspot.com/2019/05/changing-game-part-2-maintaining-players.html">more here</a>).</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Have short but active mini-lessons that deliver need to know content.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then they have time to choose a pathway and complete, what I dubbed, the scientific process. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">We end each lesson with a quick reflection.</span></li>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Things can of course, shift a bit if we are doing something major. Most days will be very much like this. Through thematic elements like messages for Earth Base 1 and the Danger Deck, students will know that they are training to save the world.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Scientific Process is the piece that is stretching me, as it is where students have the most control. We have broken up our key information into groups of questions that students must find the answers to. They start by creating a hypothesis about how it relates to our essential question. This serves as a bit of a pre assessment to show what they know. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A big goal of mine this year is to teach students that the internet is more than games, YouTube and Wikipedia. I want to show them how to find answers, learn new information and how to judge what is true and what is made up. So students have a research component where they need to find multiple sources for key information and decide the strength of the different sources.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then, they will choose one of three pathways to share and apply their learning. This is where I am entering personalized voice and choice. I want students to consider how they want to display what they are learning, so these will be very vague directions that leave a lot of room for interpretation. While I realize I could go further, and I am still limiting them more than full personified learning, this is a big step for me and I need to shift slowly here.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once their pathway is complete, students need to relate the learning back to the essential question and try to share how what they have learned relates in the big picture. Then, and finally, students will ask what other questions might they have about the topic. The questions are key to this process, as it is completely student paced and for the ones who move quickly they will come back to these questions to go BEYOND! </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There is much more to share. How students are sharing their learning, how we intend to grade this, and what is a Danger Deck? I will share more of this soon, but this was a lot for a blog post. </span></span></div>
MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-64505625396095700692019-06-15T05:22:00.001-07:002019-06-15T05:47:19.657-07:00You Are Not An Impostor<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I did something amazing this year. I stepped out of my comfort zone of teaching high energy math lessons and following it up with standard practice and I went all in with mastery learning. Out of the six major units I did two using the grid method, two using a modified version using the student paced mode of Peardeck, half of one using completely standard practices (the three weeks before Christmas) and the last unit, which is small, we had some fun with new ideas because May is for beta testing.</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-4d421f91-7fff-ad57-b629-958447d557ec" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This transition was brought on by my diverse group of students needing to be met where they are. You see in that room, our beginning of the year testing showed that my highest student was in the 93rd percentile and my lowest student was in the 2nd percentile. Yay, diversity. I was tired of not reaching the two ends. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So, prompted by my amazing learning design specialist (read coach) and having sat in on the grid method session twice this summer, I took the leap and I really liked it. In class, I condensed my high energy lessons and did my best to give my students protected time to work. There were moments of great triumph. A small group who worked together almost every day rose from average to being labeled well above average according to two separate assessments. Another student worked their way into our gifted program because I did not force them to do what everyone else was doing. All of my students showed growth and I know it was successful, but it wasn’t 100 percent. Not all of my students crossed the finish line and passed the state assessment. Nearly two weeks later, it still hurts. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiklldPJO0ELfqZl4UnWVxeWU1pWYFCI-Iukb9ZjCjp7mPD7AdNfzhGM-BxRmcVbsPTZJ6R3440dVMJ19n30mq9nUFITBWz9J3QNEbtzOJ0YEraQqTA8cdK7H7fB5NMXJpYKXXseFlIk_E/s1600/sad.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiklldPJO0ELfqZl4UnWVxeWU1pWYFCI-Iukb9ZjCjp7mPD7AdNfzhGM-BxRmcVbsPTZJ6R3440dVMJ19n30mq9nUFITBWz9J3QNEbtzOJ0YEraQqTA8cdK7H7fB5NMXJpYKXXseFlIk_E/s320/sad.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The feeling of failure<br />
Photo by Tomas Williams</td></tr>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Yesterday, I heard a new term: Impostor Syndrome. It is the feeling educators (and maybe others) get when they feel like they don’t belong. Like everything that they are doing, no matter how many people tell them otherwise, is garbage. Like any minute someone is going to walk through the door, look around and say, “You have no idea what you are doing. You may leave. We will find someone else who will teach this all the right way.” And those results put me there, y’all.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What did I do wrong, says the voice in my head.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You let everyone down.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you can’t get this to work, what is wrong with doing it the traditional way?</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You told them you’d love them for 180 days, how could you let those fail?</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you feel this way, know that you are not alone. We can hurt. It is the power we have given testing, and evaluations, and caring for the people who walk in our doors every day. It is why we need a break and makes us cry from the stresses of this job. Don’t give up. Don’t quit doing what you feel is right for the 15 to 130 kids you teach. I won’t. I saw the good, I am already planning bonkers stuff for next year that is gamified, and personalized, and mastery based, and anything else I feel is going to benefit the next group that I will love for 180 days. </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">If there is a name for that feeling that I heard on a Podcast it also means I am not alone. So I wanted you to know, you aren’t either.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU3jKPylfF8UF7Pkxtg71MSuHSZ1GJfqp0bdzCfPTOE_Pdi7o3s1YItdicthPhA8B9jD6sBU2rMTuDGNSNrfTAaiVhKbSWHlj2tK3aiBoTqY0Ik17JuFE57VjD6scx9aCwlCiXI0TDvlA/s1600/Sunrise.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU3jKPylfF8UF7Pkxtg71MSuHSZ1GJfqp0bdzCfPTOE_Pdi7o3s1YItdicthPhA8B9jD6sBU2rMTuDGNSNrfTAaiVhKbSWHlj2tK3aiBoTqY0Ik17JuFE57VjD6scx9aCwlCiXI0TDvlA/s320/Sunrise.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The sun will rise over those rocky waters.<br />
Photo by Sebastian Voortman</td></tr>
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MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-64766499173651406972019-05-19T06:11:00.001-07:002019-05-19T06:33:35.027-07:00Changing the Game Part 2: Maintaining the Players<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0UkKjXay_oSromJgGSesw7Dfc4-jpav7y9QD7dI00JFazkLCYDrRAA30S2EJAhdYODXWAOvvjE9cO62k4dVMDcD7swu0leg3MRbjjHRv0wdikfokkUU0cGImf8MdyUG3qs5USCJLyBUE/s1600/Changing+the+Game+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0UkKjXay_oSromJgGSesw7Dfc4-jpav7y9QD7dI00JFazkLCYDrRAA30S2EJAhdYODXWAOvvjE9cO62k4dVMDcD7swu0leg3MRbjjHRv0wdikfokkUU0cGImf8MdyUG3qs5USCJLyBUE/s320/Changing+the+Game+%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Looking back at the last two years in Gamification, there is one big issue that I need to deal with; keeping ALL of my learners engaged. In 2017, my district adopted a new science curriculum. The goal of our first year was to be faithful to the program and put mechanics over the top of the the lessons, like power up cards, secret missions and a leaderboard. The game and the curriculum went hand in hand, making this very successful. </span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This year, new initiatives really kept Tom (<a href="https://twitter.com/tank2023">@tank2023</a> on twitter) and I from fine tuning the game. The things we did last year still worked, but an abundance of new focuses kept us from fully capitalizing on early excitement. A big one was that we tried to split time with social studies and science which ended up being too much of a balancing act. This loss of focus for us led to a number of students disengaging from the experience. </span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All was not lost, as many students still loved to check out our headquarters site regularly, keep watch on the leaderboards and use power up cards when possible.Those experiences were still worth while and students enjoyed great moments. It just wasn’t what I was hoping for with our second group to complete the year. I suppose that there is a lesson here about quality over quantity and not extending yourself too far (a lesson I feel reminded of every so often), but there is a more learner focused question that I want to set my sights on. How do I keep more students engaged with the game to grow the excitement?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><u>Step 1: All students moving forward all the time</u></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One thing that caused drop off for some students was a lack of progress. Most of the experience points earned by students was based on secret missions, which were project completed in extra time or outside of class. I am proud that most students would complete one or two missions in a year, a few (20ish) went really far and did multiple missions per unit. However, the larger number would complete a few and lose interest. I want all players to gain points every week and keep their adventure in space going all year round.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Being a testing year, there are a lot of vocabulary words for my students to learn. So every week we will have a vocabulary game to play so that students can get these words down. Challenges will vary from a Kahoot to building representations out of various materials. They will be designed to be quick and decisive. This is dual purposed. One, I want it to be something students can be excited about each week. Two, I do not want to give this particular activity a lot of time out of class or afterwards for me. I want to be able to see the points quickly and pop them in. Quicker feedback and faster impact to the game. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To score, I am going to use a Mario Kart system of points. Top players will receive 25 points. Then one less for each place all the way down to 12, which all students will receive after 14th place. This weekly rewarding of XP based on a fun game is one hook to keep students involved. As an additional piece, a few weeks in I plan to introduce Michael Matera’s (<a href="https://twitter.com/mrmatera">@mrmatera</a> on twitter) concept of the Wall of the Fallen. Students can challenge one another for extra points. The catch, of course, being that if you lose, you are unable to be part of a challenge again. There will be ways to avoid the wall or to get off the wall based on a characters powers (more on that in a later update). This should add a level of excitement to the weekly game. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoph7eqE-nh7_m9nLXyIG0rb77I2cDzCZI6_bTZeMDF82K428susmZu1Gi_HnxDVV8j3Xunf2l_7P5gJxLy9WdTKt0ITj30XBJ6CZ7gx5LdQRRgvlD0fX8rfG9pAecE716oQoK6NzwgBQ/s1600/mk8_scoreboard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="377" data-original-width="670" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoph7eqE-nh7_m9nLXyIG0rb77I2cDzCZI6_bTZeMDF82K428susmZu1Gi_HnxDVV8j3Xunf2l_7P5gJxLy9WdTKt0ITj30XBJ6CZ7gx5LdQRRgvlD0fX8rfG9pAecE716oQoK6NzwgBQ/s320/mk8_scoreboard.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We will also have in class events that will reward XP. Whether it be an activity that students will complete or an encounter with something in space, students will have regular opportunities to grow. I am looking at a couple different inspirations for this. Mostly how different role playing games add experience points. Then, as I get into planning out the units more, those encounters will start to take shape. So, I guess more on this over the summer and into fall. Except for the crisis deck, I can not wait to tell you about the crisis deck.</span></span></div>
MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-21400749368378122572019-05-12T17:38:00.000-07:002019-05-12T17:48:26.579-07:00Changing the Game Part 1: What Lies Ahead<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrnlI1AhuoEOHsHWVvJ-a354f2wgFWAD5aaT7pAdk9hJB75LUeoP44QF7Qgg-YaNJ9UuF9MERbD6D8h7EoWNEgGt0jpZoThp65lL5f6VbkOm6aappeXTuwIDpC3paJ7e6m-gGAgCN4SKU/s1600/Changing+the+Game.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrnlI1AhuoEOHsHWVvJ-a354f2wgFWAD5aaT7pAdk9hJB75LUeoP44QF7Qgg-YaNJ9UuF9MERbD6D8h7EoWNEgGt0jpZoThp65lL5f6VbkOm6aappeXTuwIDpC3paJ7e6m-gGAgCN4SKU/s320/Changing+the+Game.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Over the past 2 years, my science class has been gamified. Our superhero themed class sparked some great stories and unforgettable moments. Some things have worked like a charm, others, not so much. However, if there is anything that I am proud of it is keeping it going for two years. Working with my teaching partner, Tom, to build it was awesome and we put a lot of ideas out there for our kids to enjoy. That said we have had our fair share of obstacles and distractions. This year, a year where I had hoped to implement a real narrative was run over by a push for mastery learning (which was super great), the sudden inclusion of a science/social studies split (something that we asked for, but wasn’t as great) and me participating in the Nintendo Labo classroom program (something that was awesome but time consuming). These things split our focus this year and kind of took away from the 4th Grade Heroes experience. </span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-296d0db6-7fff-7eb2-6882-f0eb87386281" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then, just before Spring Break, I got the news that I would be looping with my class and without my best teaching friend, Tom. Admittedly, I was disappointed to be separated from someone who has grown to be one of my best friends. Then something funny happened as I realized looping meant starting over with my game. A fresh slate. A chance to look at everything in the last two years and start over. And suddenly, my mind just started to run...or better yet fly in a different direction. We have not even reached the end of the year and I am knee deep into where I am going for next year. Don’t get me wrong, there is still plenty to be done to send these kids off right. They have worked hard and they deserve the best ending I can give them. That said, I am growing more excited about next year all the time. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have a new teammate, with emphasis on NEW. Ms. Hagemeier is wrapping up her first year and her energy is exciting. I have never gotten to be the older teacher in a group where I am working directly with them, so my mission with her is to help her find herself as she grows and incorporate as much of her style into this as we can. I also need to not overwhelm her. I have a tendency to do that when I get excited, and as I said, I am really excited. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My other major goal is to tear down everything that did not work in 4th Grade Heroes and build on the lessons and failures. It is my intention to document this process. More for my own self reflection, but if others can read it and grow then we all gain. Whatever I create during the process I intend to share freely. I hope that you enjoy this trip to the stars with me. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you hadn’t picked up on it yet, the new theme will be space sci-fi. Here is a look at our new logo. I am really proud of it.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ0lq53X-L85qopplC4XzzEzhyphenhyphenYoANTWyeGH2gUHIrs0S-zFLW2yNGIGGAzTX0l0L71Eix5UQqQuZAdYXCRhaKcA2TdH1djZPb2GMgNgw9yot0abIto1dlHpci5tD-a1wdKrCXVini2dQ/s1600/Sci-Fighter+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="312" data-original-width="820" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ0lq53X-L85qopplC4XzzEzhyphenhyphenYoANTWyeGH2gUHIrs0S-zFLW2yNGIGGAzTX0l0L71Eix5UQqQuZAdYXCRhaKcA2TdH1djZPb2GMgNgw9yot0abIto1dlHpci5tD-a1wdKrCXVini2dQ/s640/Sci-Fighter+%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-19567789024008345272018-06-03T06:25:00.000-07:002018-06-03T06:25:13.610-07:00Choose Your Own Adventures<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjta7ln1yPFSA-z52ap8DjxaTO1UFSA1TPWE9dmNsrxAT-KEL7edAPg3ETJ9Zn_At6tBwFUkALUs-eIZV7jokfT6pLompoNFjy3v2JmddLEe5PrggezxMsgqvm_yg2VWQED9EqW9W3aus4/s1600/Breaking+out+of+the+norm+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjta7ln1yPFSA-z52ap8DjxaTO1UFSA1TPWE9dmNsrxAT-KEL7edAPg3ETJ9Zn_At6tBwFUkALUs-eIZV7jokfT6pLompoNFjy3v2JmddLEe5PrggezxMsgqvm_yg2VWQED9EqW9W3aus4/s400/Breaking+out+of+the+norm+%25281%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When I get good ideas that I love and want to use in my classroom they go on a bucket list document I have on Google Keep. From there, I try to think of when it would be realistic to implement this idea and how it could be done. Will it work this school year or is it something that needs to be constructed over the summer? Ever since last summer, I have been inspired by PlayStation’s line of games called PlayLink. These are a series of games where players use a digital device (a phone or an iPad) to control what is happening. I have played two of these games and I really like both of them. So on my Crazy Ideas list sits two different crazy ideas. One is a cooperative assessment for teams of 2, where students make choices as they go that will affect what is happening later. The other is a review with branching paths where students play together with secret agendas of their own to complete as they go.</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-acab3def-c04e-5b09-9f62-a13babc79871" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As the year was coming to a close, I decided to try a lesser version of both of these ideas in one activity. I created a math review akin to a Choose Your Own Adventure Book, like the ones we read as kids. I made it in Google slides with the intent of presenting it through PearDeck. I set a goal to have students work through 10 total problems whichever path they chose. With the branching path there are 14 total problem based slides in the presentation. It branches three times and students choices impact the problems they will complete, but they always come back together. We would complete the activity as a class with the students providing answers in PearDeck and receiving chips if they are correct. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To help organize which path is which, I placed a colored square or triangle in the bottom corner of each slide. Each slide also has a title in the upper left corner for linking purposes. I linked each slide in the presention to go where it was supposed to, but found that when I presented it in PearDeck, that those links would not work. Momentarily frustrating. Then I remembered that through the PearDeck dashboard feature I can jump from slide to slide as the story unfolds. This made the colored shapes even more handy, as students voted I could just progress by finding the next slide with that color.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO9-EvGgpS85ZbPbEH9_mc5TwDVoOZ5n8fpMXNve99SJyWRGSWTraXCDx0ysTTQeeznmJmNdbYLRt1hUvMIeleAY3YU88AjvfpBhcYzJSzWd4PEXVoy_Fx8vqnHCxYaX_bjl7u3Ymsj7I/s1600/IMG_1722.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO9-EvGgpS85ZbPbEH9_mc5TwDVoOZ5n8fpMXNve99SJyWRGSWTraXCDx0ysTTQeeznmJmNdbYLRt1hUvMIeleAY3YU88AjvfpBhcYzJSzWd4PEXVoy_Fx8vqnHCxYaX_bjl7u3Ymsj7I/s320/IMG_1722.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Choice slides were represented by multiple choice questions. In PearDeck, this is represented with a Bar Graph I can share with students. Problem slides were a mix of draggable slides, short answer slides and drawing slides. I would keep track of the answers on the dashboard (which is on my phone) and reward chips as answers came in. This also allowed me to have students go back and check if needed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As a gamer and movie fan, I really enjoy the Uncharted games and, of course, Indiana Jones. So the story is themed as a jungle adventure. I looked around online to find different problems that went with our content then modeled many of my problem slides after those. There was one toward the end that I screen grabbed from common core sheets, I was pressed for time and wanted students to find missing angles. I will likely fix this over the summer. After getting the problems together, I wrote tiny pieces of narrative to connect them. It is not Shakespeare, but it quite literally gets them from A to B.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Being the end of the year, I picked a Friday to try it out. I played the Uncharted soundtrack the entire time. Each student had a sheet of paper and signed into the PearDeck presentation, I ran the presentation on my laptop to see answers and used my Chromecast as a second screen to read the slides as I walked. I put a large number of Poker chips that I borrowed from Tom in a satchel. We started by going through the rules of the game. I explained that students could not go ahead, we would take slides as a team and make choices based on popularity. Each right answer would be worth two chips unless you were the first few answers in, then you would get three. This was purposefully ambiguous and designed to discourage cheating. Corrected answers would be worth one.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We began our adventure with a simple choice; right or left. With no real hint to go on, just make a choice. The students got their first problem and answered it. Thanks to the PearDeck dashboard, I was able to see their responses quickly and reward them for their work. If they were incorrect, I was able to redirect them just as fast. Then another choice and we were off. It took about three slides to click with every student and they ate it up. “Mr. Renard, I got it!”, could be heard all around the room, especially from my most competitive boys and girls. Some struggled a bit with harder questions. A couple had a wandering eye. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYrlRTl2uZCb1sN1NFu8in_NJQUP_oTWleVwo1g5M7batryysdWj82CXYDx5KG-hQL39-51KtCGjIkPSL6nDtonaFR9tRRciTF7YuyEjx9wBKrcoP2jJlZtij86pv4BJlHY45Olj3l2FU/s1600/IMG_1719.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYrlRTl2uZCb1sN1NFu8in_NJQUP_oTWleVwo1g5M7batryysdWj82CXYDx5KG-hQL39-51KtCGjIkPSL6nDtonaFR9tRRciTF7YuyEjx9wBKrcoP2jJlZtij86pv4BJlHY45Olj3l2FU/s320/IMG_1719.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">During the adventure, I also placed one or two other choices such as what equipment to grab or which boat to choose. Each of those decisions would affect later slides. This was the cause of much discussion and allowed my more social kids to work their magic. At one point when they reached a slide where they were attacked by a giant spider with three long division equations to solve, one boy shouted out, “See, I told y’all we should have taken the stupid torches, but No. You all wanted the rifles.” Suddenly, it was like we were in an action adventure film. It was my favorite moment of the day.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">During the entire adventure most of the students had worked to keep up with eachother’s chips and where they were in comparison. In the end, we had 1 winner and two that tied for second place. The activity was a success and I have it locked in to review for next year.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZlzW_NgAg2VEHn4227y-J6UNb-guBXwhbmy4_ZaONNnm6LaEfnKDJP6idOsPjX_DOTZplYyTx9dQBdPZPAVWGEoKvCydQ7rvaza2xuTbWxPyN55r1Ri_7KfEDgPFaAlNQWqzLpES1A_s/s1600/IMG_1706.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZlzW_NgAg2VEHn4227y-J6UNb-guBXwhbmy4_ZaONNnm6LaEfnKDJP6idOsPjX_DOTZplYyTx9dQBdPZPAVWGEoKvCydQ7rvaza2xuTbWxPyN55r1Ri_7KfEDgPFaAlNQWqzLpES1A_s/s320/IMG_1706.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The good: The students loved it! I was aiming to please all the different types of players that my students were and it definitely did that. There was excitement, talking, competition, choice, collaboration and most of all, 100% engagement. Every kid answered every question. It also changed the entire feel of the room. For one day, math class felt much more like a board game. This was the equivalent of a ten question spiral review quiz and you never would have known it if you had walked in. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The bad: It took a while to put it together. A few years ago, I got some good advice about putting new activities together. The teacher told me to look at prep time versus activity time. Admittedly, my endurance for that advice is greater than most, but it pushed my limits, as there was a lot more trial and error than I thought there might be. I spent a lot of time linking slides to find out that this doesn’t work in PearDeck. That said, I learned a lot about PearDeck’s capabilities and saw a few ways I could have saved time if and when I make another adventure like this one. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The other thing that I need to solve is how to completely curb cheating. Whenever there is competition, there will be one or two who resort to looking for help whether it is offered or not. I need to come up with a solution.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Modifications: There, as always, are a couple of errors that I need to fix. It was a lot of slides and errors happen. Additionally, I needed a clipboard with my role and 10 boxes each. Just to quickly keep track of who got chips and how many. I don’t think anyone took advantage of me dispensing rewards, but this would help me stay organized. Lastly, make sure you have enough currency for everyone and then some. Due to end of year scheduling, I took on a few (6) extra students at the last second and had to pull out base ten cubes for backup.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the end, it was a great activity and I learned a ton doing it. I will do this adventure next year and likely build one or two more. I also have aspirations to do a room transformation for this activity, but I may recruit some help. Help is good.</span></span></div>
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MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-50911355010295168202018-03-31T18:42:00.001-07:002018-03-31T18:42:10.711-07:00The Day Protractors Took Over In Science<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi06FaFNjqZrzQ0U_JrmjVXNmntGD1VNBpaUSACZO30vuR_beMh1bPxlpg1XMKtDI74SSwdOvc3pMd2TQD0CP1KziG9dhBr1ErTXXt8ub6Aw9KlqW2gFkUuoupKJbGX0EBZSx0ufLvL_BU/s1600/Breaking+out+of+the+norm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi06FaFNjqZrzQ0U_JrmjVXNmntGD1VNBpaUSACZO30vuR_beMh1bPxlpg1XMKtDI74SSwdOvc3pMd2TQD0CP1KziG9dhBr1ErTXXt8ub6Aw9KlqW2gFkUuoupKJbGX0EBZSx0ufLvL_BU/s400/Breaking+out+of+the+norm.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-e82f7f62-7ed1-8e05-82b2-5b656de908c2"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">This year two big things happened in my science class that have fundamentally changed the way I teach. Tom and I went all in on a gamified classroom. We have leaderboards, power up, teams and a very loose narrative. Then in November, I was introduced to Peardeck, an interactive presentation program that I like so much that I will be presenting on it at USM Summer Spark conference in Milwaukee this summer. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As part of the game Tom and I run, students can earn Power Up cards. These are class rewards, incentives for amazing work in and out of the classroom. They allow kids to choose their seats, read with friends, listen to music during assignments and other things students love to do. Every unit we try to introduce a few new ones to keep class fresh and exciting. The results vary. Sometimes kids will use them, other times they save them because they like collecting them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After Peardeck became a staple of our rooms, we decided to base a few cards around impacting how other groups would need to respond to questions in Peardeck. One card impacted how many words students could use to respond. That one is fun, especially since it includes a dice roll when played: instant suspense. Today, though, I want to share the story of Mr. Mxyzptlk (yeah, don’t ask me how to pronounce it either. I likely butcher it all the time). The character is a villain in the <i>Superman</i> comics who is known for trickery. When we designed the card, we wanted to make it have interesting and tricky results. Here is what we came up with:</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfbkzwFY_BOD8Z8JjWgBq2eMnrJ22U4FUMhn0h2eoWgy8dMgYCdkNhmefG31Av2JGPUUWP0S1p426exN4NWiqqmD9M5w8ylotuJU-sGtnTnCsJiQLS7WRWffGrmieD14zrnCwJdsANeV0/s1600/IMG_1449.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfbkzwFY_BOD8Z8JjWgBq2eMnrJ22U4FUMhn0h2eoWgy8dMgYCdkNhmefG31Av2JGPUUWP0S1p426exN4NWiqqmD9M5w8ylotuJU-sGtnTnCsJiQLS7WRWffGrmieD14zrnCwJdsANeV0/s400/IMG_1449.HEIC" width="300" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The card has been played a couple times now. Once the student accidentally chose a word that worked out really easily for the group it was played on. The second time, well, it was blog worthy. The child raised his hand. “Mr. Renard, are there a lot of Peardeck questions today?”</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-e82f7f62-7ed2-5946-ea91-a171afee1399" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I knew why he was asking, gave him a big smile and said, “Yep.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He reached into his inventory (a 9 baseball card plastic page) and produced Mr. Mxyzptlk. “That group,” he said pointing at the next table over, “must use the word 'protractor' in each of their responses for this lesson.” There was some laughter around the room and a few nerves coming from the table that had been targeted. I explained that they were not allowed to just throw the word in at the end, but it needed to be used in a way that made sense. Here are some of the results.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmcBmWa9PqJ2oDa2zDd_qAmzHB_ccZxcx7PkYkd-O8r2JW85mLimIKWCMNSw_i12W7ExU8Zaka2AO0mBUK1wunAnmG41KS1VHBAIWMoWCwRVrFR5VKlkUXpuxF-Ve8Rh_3q-hQHS0J_-A/s1600/IMG_1446.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmcBmWa9PqJ2oDa2zDd_qAmzHB_ccZxcx7PkYkd-O8r2JW85mLimIKWCMNSw_i12W7ExU8Zaka2AO0mBUK1wunAnmG41KS1VHBAIWMoWCwRVrFR5VKlkUXpuxF-Ve8Rh_3q-hQHS0J_-A/s320/IMG_1446.HEIC" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR7Soy5Z_fAZYtANBWJ9qhOylf4lX1h5P9iptH9vqdjc_lVlUdvMx3uAPNvIpLIr7P4tdaux1ViL4VCJIEwFwoTbC3BOX57do8N105dIKcjAWcP7Cx79MGogsli6PIW07JF8ioUSUJI7E/s1600/IMG_1447.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR7Soy5Z_fAZYtANBWJ9qhOylf4lX1h5P9iptH9vqdjc_lVlUdvMx3uAPNvIpLIr7P4tdaux1ViL4VCJIEwFwoTbC3BOX57do8N105dIKcjAWcP7Cx79MGogsli6PIW07JF8ioUSUJI7E/s320/IMG_1447.HEIC" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAGQAgXNFtvviNJx5KnQP_eRy3Y6S_URkIGZnfH39FgP4v6SbKr-igfoDV3oa8V3nMlOg-AbZBT31ErowcKiN2KKfVZmXPMa16JFHO_lc4pT0N1wF6iQRoJWQfmZqFJGuzLuVkRjETduY/s1600/IMG_1456.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAGQAgXNFtvviNJx5KnQP_eRy3Y6S_URkIGZnfH39FgP4v6SbKr-igfoDV3oa8V3nMlOg-AbZBT31ErowcKiN2KKfVZmXPMa16JFHO_lc4pT0N1wF6iQRoJWQfmZqFJGuzLuVkRjETduY/s320/IMG_1456.HEIC" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Other examples included, ‘When looking at the sides of this canyon, we could use a protractor to measure the angles’ and ‘Rocks are hard to break down and it takes water a long time to do it. Not protractors though, they break if you step on them or bend them.’ Not all the answers worked as you can see. When the answer did not work, the player of the card was rewarded.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What really made this special was the way the other students got so excited to read what the target team wrote and how they worked 'protractor' into their responses. The lesson carried into a second day and one of the kids told me that he had thought about ways to use the word when he went home the night before. It never ceases to surprise me how little tweaks like this make my students more creative and excited. It can really take a normal day and make it memorable. I would encourage you to add a monkey wrench to something simple in your classroom and see what happens.</span></span></div>
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MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-48482156129891974892018-03-10T14:31:00.001-08:002018-03-10T14:33:56.915-08:00When It Doesn't Go Well<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfm7mLWwz7nLj_-0hpYb90e8gAN4CYdl_HLtHi1buzK7CB5RqBR8HNexeWPGOgEqgiXmCH9Zo3l6sitFSpcT1fsyXJ9N7EnrwFd3QEwGhGtNOpdUF-5OyMNb8YhdZ0GNRImMUOs-jlyN0/s1600/Zoinks.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfm7mLWwz7nLj_-0hpYb90e8gAN4CYdl_HLtHi1buzK7CB5RqBR8HNexeWPGOgEqgiXmCH9Zo3l6sitFSpcT1fsyXJ9N7EnrwFd3QEwGhGtNOpdUF-5OyMNb8YhdZ0GNRImMUOs-jlyN0/s400/Zoinks.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Looking back on what I have written so far it would be easy to think that everything just works. However that is most certainly not true. Every great educational book that I have read talks about creative and innovative lessons that fall flat and I have had my fair share. So this is a small sub category that I am going to start called WIDGW, or When It Doesn’t Go Well. Here I am going to talk about the things that I am going to use again, but before I do I need to rework it a bit.</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-fedabdfd-11fb-ff18-a92e-16b0c1bbb628" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am starting with what was one of my favorite new things this year that I totally miscalculated: A Scooby Doo Addition and Subtraction unit. It was my second unit here at my new school and I just didn’t feel like I was myself yet. Looking back at it now, my family and I were living with our in-laws, I had just launched a gamified science class, I was adjusting to a new school, state, and life. I probably should have taken everything lesson by lesson, but I dream big.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I looked at what was too come and I wanted to make something more out of what was a pretty straight forward set of lessons. I made a haunted house where the kids could see our progress from one lesson to the next. Then I created a deck of what I called ‘Zoinks’ cards. Each card was themed after a classic Scooby Doo monster from the old cartoon. During lessons we would pull cards and the cards would each have a fun effect. One might ask them to write every odd number in their sums and differences in green color pencil, another forced them to rewrite their answers in expanded form. I set up my lessons in a pretty simple way so that the game element would be the piece that made it fun.</span></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCfaOtL6EKEl8rAjzPLcM39FvhnJ-_R-z_rieFGPoK8KeUld04eGNDj5-gpA3IDf9RXqg5yYa4lJu6p_kLv3qxu7AXFmzbEESm3NP8ELOXpwdrqH7ITVvymm0xRoUhyphenhyphenbXhC1sKzrhBe54/s1600/Mansion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCfaOtL6EKEl8rAjzPLcM39FvhnJ-_R-z_rieFGPoK8KeUld04eGNDj5-gpA3IDf9RXqg5yYa4lJu6p_kLv3qxu7AXFmzbEESm3NP8ELOXpwdrqH7ITVvymm0xRoUhyphenhyphenbXhC1sKzrhBe54/s320/Mansion.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The haunted mansion I drew for the unit.</span></td></tr>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For the first few lessons, it worked. The kids were enjoying the challenges. Some of them would act so dramatic when it was time to pull a card. They wanted to do it though. They all also wanted to be the ones who moved our marker to the next area of the haunted house. So, what went wrong? In a word: timing.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Do to some things that we did at the beginning of the year that are positive to do, we were about a week and half behind on our pacing guide. During this unit, I found out that a lot of teachers in our district combine concepts in this unit to make up some of that time. Additionally, because of the way I had designed some of the cards it was making students take longer to complete certain tasks, which in turn would cause us to draw out lessons into multiple days. This would mean that we wrapped up lessons early the next day before starting the next day. In that rushed feeling, I would forget to have someone advance the Scooby Gang to the next room. Between combining lessons and throwing in preparation for the final assessment my well laid plan totally feel apart around me.</span></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxq3hqvQtcm60mluIQgODkhgBuTNzksYRNvAads3mfJo4e4bmiAvg4xPEfObaM1eMtGgOohyphenhyphenrQmKillPzF8hllms83fewsfJW9eRNoT0XBwBlxKMeoHIvyK3NO9Kuq3qa1eW-KDx80PvY/s1600/black+knight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="274" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxq3hqvQtcm60mluIQgODkhgBuTNzksYRNvAads3mfJo4e4bmiAvg4xPEfObaM1eMtGgOohyphenhyphenrQmKillPzF8hllms83fewsfJW9eRNoT0XBwBlxKMeoHIvyK3NO9Kuq3qa1eW-KDx80PvY/s320/black+knight.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">An example of one of the cards.</span></td></tr>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the end, the students did well with the material and we were where we needed to be in terms of content and pacing. However, Scooby and the gang did not make it through the mansion. Also, despite the excitement that it generated, we only got about two thirds of the way through our Zoinks cards. A few of the kids asked why we stopped with the different pieces and I told them that I was sorry that it didn’t work out. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If I am being honest, the hardest part about innovation in the classroom is usually balancing time and pacing. This is especially true in math, where pacing guides loom like the forbidding legendary ghost of a pirate captain which is actually just a millionaire who is trying to scare off well meaning teachers with aspersions to make things awesome. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is possible to do exciting and engaging lessons, it just takes work, planning and time. Scooby and the gang will rise again next year if I am teaching math. They will be more equipped to get through a renovated haunted house. The villains will be lurking in the shadows to complicate matters. Kids will probably be pretty excited excited again. For right now though, this all finds itself in an article subtitled: When It Doesn’t Go Well. </span></span></div>
MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-61108481889176064322018-03-03T12:30:00.000-08:002018-03-03T12:41:06.393-08:005 Things as We Turn to March<div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR119ubNxVOAhH7u7IoWc9aePyMy8rwRZVw9rcib59usnET0eMOO09OVdQogfGyy44qLDuHTMWTtwVK9q2GSI8iiE9oZ3-D9ayJy8NGDbenefzs96DuVEi1BFbB73yynp7f1-1wtphZK8/s1600/5+Things.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR119ubNxVOAhH7u7IoWc9aePyMy8rwRZVw9rcib59usnET0eMOO09OVdQogfGyy44qLDuHTMWTtwVK9q2GSI8iiE9oZ3-D9ayJy8NGDbenefzs96DuVEi1BFbB73yynp7f1-1wtphZK8/s400/5+Things.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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So, here are five things that I thought about or that happened this week. Most of which had to do with school.</div>
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1. It was group picture week. This may be my favorite school based picture ever. <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Complete</span> with photobomb by the photographer.</div>
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<img alt="" id="id_5312_8ef6_899_4209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIQAx6iGnqwqoDneVVNJNMv2pBKgmGpVKuJrNuss-MNIZWHOUaPvdAZhR4Ni8yKRQ-9pEFWoshXb4Rx7lL0CIaIU9oatoELUS15cRDroLIvgcYxK-Qiw_qVXi6iJGrwk-hJTMhltlVlZ4/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; width: 353px;" title="" tooltip="" /></div>
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2. No matter the amount of work and effort you are putting into a fixed path, sometimes straying from it can lead to magic. Here’s to Ms. Burkhart.</div>
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<img alt="" id="id_5ce4_dfe2_a5d7_dfd2" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCqC3ukeDvI1dwHk_ikyWn98wq2blQNdpukd7jBbs7KAnLWEK-b7vjfHa4sgEz-YasrjEg6zKXirb8b4hVm590mng86k9zS6-blP1WYuiy98sB1jY4ETKMyL4Isemj8Z-cvR41hKyt9x4/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; width: 353px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
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3. Those moments you know that they are thinking of you. This week one student made me a Nintendo Switch out of modeling foam. Thursday I got a random hug from another on my way into school. Then on Friday a student informed me that he convinced his parents that he couldn’t leave for a trip a half hour early because we had a delay and he didn’t want to miss my class.</div>
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<img alt="" id="id_2ccc_81bb_9745_ca9f" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvNwGpErVKoylDMogNaspQxsvtZzG_1uYEKHbCCe_GNhyCzQspRNgO57lYavhOls3GU8IevO2tviaO4XqliaPMw1dY47pzOJ_etEFFC_zi-fzX_WxdUwkpIbj7CLXEXpEWZT6xd738mQI/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; width: 353px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
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4. Boys are still weird and this girl’s drawing depicts it in the most accurate fashion possible.</div>
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<img alt="" id="id_dd09_47a2_b690_aec9" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi08_917hObsVbDeu56LEPkRw5LKCHEPHJ3T5kfI94C01ONvvhMx73yf0rzRaYABwZtp26m8EfNUCOvstmetZyl3pIl2z6RQG7VQpQdHnUQQ7yOjQhzY6aVVZOdvmiDVR6KqeD7fLVgnFA/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; width: 353px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
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5. As difficult as it can be to have my kids at my school at times, moments like sitting with my daughter in her new dress on picture day make it worth it.</div>
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<img alt="" id="id_5ce0_8802_fb62_b325" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwe7WhKJxTw68ZIZXXdGRbkI9Z9UxB36hAErzr54COB0JLdHibHQr8jtuImZJl3ZQ8QX7nRBYB8GLuV4tB8wzsWDNDTB9zCGP-Cw2HIlsn-IBiKTfzk0L_91xU6fTcKlohag9BwWuiTb8/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; width: 353px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
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MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-68650340311934604942018-03-01T16:15:00.001-08:002018-03-01T16:15:16.431-08:00Crossing Line For Learning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifGCacfw2OfoKilaB07TrlJWP7NpErjitJseh31Urntzh8liTqCrQ0LfEJ55BO7JeyIBLOrp2GkoH-L8-4TqAgp-LA4CqyHRzfP7vF8-X3oQ0P03uDtgdgYqJKSCARxymAkhjttd4-hRw/s1600/Crossing+Line+for+Learning.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifGCacfw2OfoKilaB07TrlJWP7NpErjitJseh31Urntzh8liTqCrQ0LfEJ55BO7JeyIBLOrp2GkoH-L8-4TqAgp-LA4CqyHRzfP7vF8-X3oQ0P03uDtgdgYqJKSCARxymAkhjttd4-hRw/s400/Crossing+Line+for+Learning.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So, when I started teaching I had come fresh from college and being part of improv comedy. I slid right into a sage on the stage role. I joked for a while that I was my students favorite cartoon character. Then, thanks to an amazing battle axe of a math specialist, I realized the strength in self discovery, especially in math and I shifted to more of a coach and less of the know it all.</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-8bb4fe1f-e3f7-127c-d149-80e93e329a6f" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That brings me to this activity. Over the days leading up to this activity we had learned how to measure angles using a protractor. The next step in the state of Ohio (and most core states) is to find missing angles in intersecting lines. I ventured onto Pinterest (something my wife laughs at me about because I used to be resistant to it) and found a wonderful activity where you put masking tape on tables and have students measure the angles. It also works out nicely with our districts push for flexible furniture. My whiteboard tables were perfect. This was just what I needed to establish the rules of finding missing angles. A quick trip to Target and $6 later I had a colorful combination of intersecting lines.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The kids were interested the moment that they came in the door that day. A few of them were sad to find out that it was not for science as they go to another teacher for math. At the beginning of class we took a few minute to review using protractors. Then I explained what I wanted them to do. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnj7iwmU-QYgV1-TEthf3I1rYmPPnXfVhkUXMDvJ2qRkgvz8aF-pnzu-ejvNt3-eWIJychb0dWymIJme5tnfJ7Pme5f6JHD5RRop5iDFj8Jpf_Rztg-Z1gAhL5eHB8lDoC5BCsP4Yvdxs/s1600/Angle+Table+1+%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnj7iwmU-QYgV1-TEthf3I1rYmPPnXfVhkUXMDvJ2qRkgvz8aF-pnzu-ejvNt3-eWIJychb0dWymIJme5tnfJ7Pme5f6JHD5RRop5iDFj8Jpf_Rztg-Z1gAhL5eHB8lDoC5BCsP4Yvdxs/s320/Angle+Table+1+%25281%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As we started the activity, I moved from table to table watching the students measure the angles and I waited. One boy said it first, “Mr. Renard, when I measure…” I cut him off giving him a smile and saying, “Not yet. Just wait.” He smiled understanding. From another table, “Mr. Renard, when I measure the angles…” Again, I held out my hand with a reassuring smile to stop the girl from finishing her sentence. “Hold that thought.” A minute of two later, from a third table. “Hey, angles add up to 180.” I moved over and said, “Huh, cool. Be ready to share.”</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1GTbl-wLEjkLQAJReWw-nnoGWWiRokfXT5ujZmLGbIYyy1SWKitlXqivfutUkFhrT6mPEV-MxQ1B7Vgyyqdzf8-hLhH80gQCVotvGq1G5oj1h8oaDn20K3sKTQ2k_-TBYHqdNBbQopA4/s1600/Angle+Table+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1GTbl-wLEjkLQAJReWw-nnoGWWiRokfXT5ujZmLGbIYyy1SWKitlXqivfutUkFhrT6mPEV-MxQ1B7Vgyyqdzf8-hLhH80gQCVotvGq1G5oj1h8oaDn20K3sKTQ2k_-TBYHqdNBbQopA4/s320/Angle+Table+3.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Finally, a young lady at my last table called me over and said “Mr. Renard, this angle and this angle are the same.” That's what I was waiting for. I called for my classes attention and asked them to gather around the table. Choosing to allow this last student to share what she had discovered in order to build her confidence, I encouraged her to share what she found with the class. “The angles that are across from each other are the same.”</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“How can they be the same? They are separate angles.” I said.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“I mean they are equal.” Wording matters to me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Exaggerated look. “Huh! Well, how about that? Did anyone else find anything?”</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another student. “Yeah, angles along the lines add up to 180 degrees.”</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I looked at the work of one of the student and got wide eyed, “What sorcery is this?! Anyone else?”</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another young man, “Yeah, all of the angles add up to 360 degrees.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Me, “Everytime?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another student, “I think so.” I gave them time to confirm this and watched a student or two see the direction things were going and make some changes by of a couple of degrees. The students all agreed. We copied down these new ‘rules’ on the board and students went back to finish up. Once each group was done they began personal assignments, but I couldn’t have scripted that conversation any better. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQn5nnmPQQICPKFz5CKANGwrG0N8PaLSf6QtyeWqtUFjGRaYUjw3rvUrnh8PnWlw-2DaZJknEzqCQcp0ysfL95aYhX0AVo7zjS0DKBQnTP3tl2xs6HCVJ97XfXYYgMcdWFJvbI102emQs/s1600/Angle+Table+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQn5nnmPQQICPKFz5CKANGwrG0N8PaLSf6QtyeWqtUFjGRaYUjw3rvUrnh8PnWlw-2DaZJknEzqCQcp0ysfL95aYhX0AVo7zjS0DKBQnTP3tl2xs6HCVJ97XfXYYgMcdWFJvbI102emQs/s320/Angle+Table+2.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Looking back on it, I am mostly happy with everything. My students are getting better and better with just doing the crazy things that we do in class. I am really encouraged by their willingness to share their thoughts, even if they might be wrong. One thing that I noted to do next time I try the activity is to maybe take pictures or if time let students compare by doing a round two. Though the more I think about it, the trickier I think it would be. </span></span></div>
MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-10715137796939239832018-02-17T06:07:00.001-08:002018-02-17T06:07:38.706-08:00The Lines of Dueling<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzO121sGb_ctXSqqpYE_0PYhlz0QnV6Dc5PBds7GtcKteJjC1D3X27faX48iwITgpTy_u5EfjGcjjh5HHPQVvUkpX2qInlBMcLWxTzkiBMO_R9lkrBYOQrq4Q-xBBOQJ6xp2TfOr7mgdQ/s1600/Lines+of+Dueling.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzO121sGb_ctXSqqpYE_0PYhlz0QnV6Dc5PBds7GtcKteJjC1D3X27faX48iwITgpTy_u5EfjGcjjh5HHPQVvUkpX2qInlBMcLWxTzkiBMO_R9lkrBYOQrq4Q-xBBOQJ6xp2TfOr7mgdQ/s400/Lines+of+Dueling.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Recently, in my math class we shifted gears. I realized that I was following a regiment that I was not comfortable with and as a result they were not meeting goals that I had for them. I adopted a very time specific format of content lesson, personal growth and performance task attack time. The goal is to challenge them on all fronts. That said, I realized if I was going to spend less time with the direct instruction, then my lesson time was going to have to be on point, engaging and all in.</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-7c6f72f9-a3ed-8839-352d-0949912c92cf" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After adopting a pirate theme for the class (more on that another time), I reworked my first two geometry lessons to teach point, line, segment, ray and angle using a treasure map. This though, was the one I was waiting for. My students need to learn about intersecting, parallel and perpendicular lines. To do this we practiced our swashbuckling before hitting the seven seas.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To begin, I modeled what parallel, perpendicular and intersecting lines looked and they made their own drawings. We made observations before defining of each one under their pictures. Then I told them, “As proper pirates, we never know what we will encounter, so we have to be handy with a blade. Savvy?” They are still adjusting to my pirate talk. I then passed out a yard/meter stick to each students. At first, they were confused and then came the smiles. They realized that I was planning to allow them to do what every child assumes is the true purpose of these measurement tools; use them as a sword.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6DhTyhfhFHarbbG5z4jy2gkQpSBqnPJs9mMK2Lb21RYgGEcWRK8sBBACaDW-lw47ZWXlNWN9m3PGpjqdNF0mYFvhNTBbjs8nMMUW73GA5JLHB4EIBJC3PoHMhyh96Hnl2IAJt_Tkzq9g/s1600/IMG_1376.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6DhTyhfhFHarbbG5z4jy2gkQpSBqnPJs9mMK2Lb21RYgGEcWRK8sBBACaDW-lw47ZWXlNWN9m3PGpjqdNF0mYFvhNTBbjs8nMMUW73GA5JLHB4EIBJC3PoHMhyh96Hnl2IAJt_Tkzq9g/s320/IMG_1376.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Before starting, I gave strict warning that I had many fun activities planned, but if they could not handle this, then it would impact what we can and cannot do. I asked them to stand a find a partner and I joined the extra student. We put the tips of our blades on the ground and I explained that I would count to three. With each count they needed to tap blades with their partner. Then, I would shout parallel, perpendicular or intersecting. They would use their blades to match the command. It was all smiles. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We played four rounds switching partners each time. Each round it was fun to watch different combinations of kids work together as they tried to line up their “swords” in at exactly the right angles or make sure they were straight and never crossing. There was so much laughter and excitement as they waited for the next command. After our final round, I had students return to the page where we had defined the sets of lines and add doodles of people sword fighting using the lines they had already drawn as the swords. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3WnmMBBPTkQRoYPO6bWyet5RSc2Oup1f7m7atHb8H21sg-TyCcMFgYB93Gz1gxOtl0FdBJv6nkZU9Tsui_XKYphDZk64QVvt-Rc0qw9WPyyzJ96-r6104eQBT-lniSyIosJyUoUMlpy8/s1600/IMG_1374.MOV" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="320" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3WnmMBBPTkQRoYPO6bWyet5RSc2Oup1f7m7atHb8H21sg-TyCcMFgYB93Gz1gxOtl0FdBJv6nkZU9Tsui_XKYphDZk64QVvt-Rc0qw9WPyyzJ96-r6104eQBT-lniSyIosJyUoUMlpy8/s320/IMG_1374.MOV" width="179" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">They loved it. They were able to describe and draw the lines. They worked in partners to physically create the lines, collaborating so that they got them just right. It was a super great little lesson; memorable and active. Now, on to measuring angles by analyzing the x that marks the spot and rotations of </span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Olympic</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> snowboarders. I wonder if my principal would mind me constructing a halfpipe in the classroom? So many ideas, so little time.</span></span></span></div>
MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-40838431013468557442018-02-14T04:39:00.002-08:002018-02-14T04:39:24.091-08:00In the Battle of Heroes vs Villains<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvvAb9tO8ZOjjwHH6NTzpwYdgq4EYG0BVmWf6tmN3eLnitbenECN06xUvYpviN5n9lY8oYqkY_CPQOjBj1KlQgXc2_WVySAizIGuVuzx9k7gHk-vQs60TcPGgBl1cYpHL4SBfR1gz9roc/s1600/Breaking+out+of+the+norm+%25283%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvvAb9tO8ZOjjwHH6NTzpwYdgq4EYG0BVmWf6tmN3eLnitbenECN06xUvYpviN5n9lY8oYqkY_CPQOjBj1KlQgXc2_WVySAizIGuVuzx9k7gHk-vQs60TcPGgBl1cYpHL4SBfR1gz9roc/s400/Breaking+out+of+the+norm+%25283%2529.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Existing with and inside of a curriculum can be difficult. Especially for someone who wants to innovate and push the envelope constantly. This year, our district adopted a new curriculum for science: Amplify. I have had ups and downs with curriculum, especially scripted curriculum. I will say that Amplify has been pretty cool. Best of all though, is it lends itself very well to gamification. The two seem to compliment each other.</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-7ebced2c-9446-511f-354a-18e27801fb19" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At the the end of each chapter, the students have to write a scientific explanation or argument to respond to the chapter’s main question. In a gamified classroom this would typically be a boss battle, in which students answer questions correctly to defeat the “boss” (the test). Tom and I tried that out, calling the parts of the rubric, the bosses hit points. It never felt quite right though. Writing does not lend itself well to the boss battle concept. After some discussion we decided that for our final paper of unit two, we would try something different.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Our game is based on Superheroes, but at the beginning of the year we allowed the students to decide if they were a hero or a villain. It was a decision we had not emphasized to this point. During this unit the students took on the role of conservation biologist in order to save Tokay geckos in the rainforest who were dying. Over the course of the unit students learned that street lights had been installed in the area were making it hard for the geckos to see because of their high sensitivity light receptors. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Tom and I choose to emphasize their affiliations of heroics of villainy in their final explanations in order to foster both competition and unity. For the heroes, they would write the explanation as they would have before, but they also had to add a solution to save the geckos and still protect the drivers. The villains on the other hand would write their normal explanation, but need to include a plot to use what they had learned to push the geckos in the area into extinction. Each paper would graded on the same rubric. Then we would take all the heroes scores and all the villains scores and average them out. To the winning side: 200XP on the leaderboard. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There was palpable excitement in the room as we broke this down for the students. We explained it and shared our expectations. We told them that if they wanted to share their papers with others on their team to get feedback, they could. This practice encourages teamwork and support. We also asked that their plot not be things like throwing all the geckos into a volcano, or getting rid of the highway altogether. They went to town, and it was crazy, y’all. There was real feedback and support as both weaker writers reached out to ones that they knew could offer constructive criticism.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After grading them, the students wrote some really great papers. Many students making their best efforts of the year. In the end, my favorite part was the plots to save or get rid of the geckos. We had heroes that suggested using lights that would dim or brighten based on motion sensors and building walls around the highway to limit stray light. We had villains that suggested installing additional street lights in between the existing streetlights and cutting down some of the trees near the highway to maximize the reach of the light being generated. Of all 74 students, whose papers that I read, only one did not base their plot around the information we learned about light and vision. Our final averages were heroes with 8.9 and villains with 8.4. The craziest part was that in three of our five classes the villains actually won. It came down to one weak performing villain group that did not work together, to give the heroes the victory. Talk about a teachable moment in cooperation.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghpuCsnX3kiZ2ekmYloDnwB7bUzzpKY9yU-lDV21EilnyLR018IRrn-5DWyCdGaKetZHaS-qoa6U1eX3h8e-K8joBS-oPztGMLeF52QfTGfVjigQn5ywJd3SbFjaJgMDfD7fN9w_xPWyA/s1600/Heroes+Announcement.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="509" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghpuCsnX3kiZ2ekmYloDnwB7bUzzpKY9yU-lDV21EilnyLR018IRrn-5DWyCdGaKetZHaS-qoa6U1eX3h8e-K8joBS-oPztGMLeF52QfTGfVjigQn5ywJd3SbFjaJgMDfD7fN9w_xPWyA/s320/Heroes+Announcement.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There were some tiny things I will change when (not if) we do it again. Like setting the room up with heroes on one side and villains on the other. Making sure Tom and I used the exact same rubric, we had a small difference in point breakdown. We may allow sides to use a power up that pulls players to their side through “mind control” or “redemption”. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That said this was a huge success. Students were motivated, helpful and encouraging to one another. My favorite part of all of it though, was kids coming up with solutions that focused on the information they had worked so hard to learn. That is our goal, right? To have them apply what they learn to solve problems. This put the students in a position to really consider how we make problems better or worse. This took a fairly straight forward explanation one step further and made them apply their knowledge, which is the best display of learning I could ask for. It was amazing.</span></span></div>
MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-44525795406826653482018-02-10T07:25:00.000-08:002018-02-10T07:25:08.955-08:00Operation! I'm the Doctor for You!<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSuciGsQUH5VfDuKpWZHDKITGeycEWRAZsjPfY62Krio46cG1wEVypIgbpkglgAcqLf1NmUYAW5FdpsaSmEstDURVc6La_ZfRWa5gzG0K8yJJY8GfKm2aPLNmulLAkeRGWQK0XA8EyNtk/s1600/Operation+Header.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSuciGsQUH5VfDuKpWZHDKITGeycEWRAZsjPfY62Krio46cG1wEVypIgbpkglgAcqLf1NmUYAW5FdpsaSmEstDURVc6La_ZfRWa5gzG0K8yJJY8GfKm2aPLNmulLAkeRGWQK0XA8EyNtk/s400/Operation+Header.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Last year when working with order of operations, I had a fun idea to have the kids look problems that were wrong, and fix them. When setting it up I drew the large pictures of patients who were sleeping. On each one I placed an incorrect problem and had the kids move around the room and ‘fix the patient.’ This year, in fourth grade I don’t go as in depth with that concept. However, my students are getting their first go at both long division and multiple methods of double digit multiplication. So it seemed like a good time to pull this activity out of my pocket and put it into practice. </span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-3d07d12e-7d6a-eec2-9694-bd96b182e125" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I set up six stations; three with long division mistakes and three with multiplication mistakes. For multiplication I opted to use both the standard algorithm and the box method. The mistakes I highlighted were the same mistakes I had seen from the students. The students that had displayed a good understanding of the process through exit tickets and class practice could move around freely as they diagnose each patient and complete the problems correctly. The few students who were still having troubles would work with me to complete the six problems first, and then they could match the work to the patient and figure out what they did wrong. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi78grbqKwGDiyjqTj6YCSzEAwvTW3DcpkTvD7CswFyZz4BEX9qvYjxuU9T71aeAZ9R9FlaOazRIbLYJLtCP5mn3-v7QbLVmAw4NYXw8CrtK3tLd0WXBSJg3tc3PfGS2uM5rMHrFQY9h04/s1600/IMG_1342.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi78grbqKwGDiyjqTj6YCSzEAwvTW3DcpkTvD7CswFyZz4BEX9qvYjxuU9T71aeAZ9R9FlaOazRIbLYJLtCP5mn3-v7QbLVmAw4NYXw8CrtK3tLd0WXBSJg3tc3PfGS2uM5rMHrFQY9h04/s320/IMG_1342.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On the day of the activity I had students fold a piece of paper in half. One half of the paper was for their diagnosis and the other half was to complete the problem correctly. The free moving students worked very well moving from one station to the next. One or two of the problems stumped the students because the mistakes were tricky to notice. Every student got through at least five of the six students. Working with the students who had difficulties also seemed to go really well. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR3m9-Da6kCUdZ52bOmVHEYKWn1UPt6gOvDqztRBA6Tl4CSOOh-rW7oSfFv3wQbgXnCGVYAN2FYJ7nFq3Z02drW_8_W6M_rN3s_I5XnRLrLhm0DRJLKHOcTyZGzYUH-1ksK9ZL1BxDsfQ/s1600/IMG_1343.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR3m9-Da6kCUdZ52bOmVHEYKWn1UPt6gOvDqztRBA6Tl4CSOOh-rW7oSfFv3wQbgXnCGVYAN2FYJ7nFq3Z02drW_8_W6M_rN3s_I5XnRLrLhm0DRJLKHOcTyZGzYUH-1ksK9ZL1BxDsfQ/s320/IMG_1343.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That said, we only had about 35 minutes to complete the activity. So I was not able to get through all of the equations with the students I was working with. Also, while I had time to go over the answers, I did not have enough time to go in depth with the mistakes in the problems each patient had. I have already noted to myself the need for a full class for this activity the next time. </span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What I like about this activity is that the classroom transformation immediately sets a tone that this will be different. Students usually rise to a different atmosphere. In a dream world they all get scrubs, clipboards and face masks. For a first effort in Ohio, this went pretty well. </span></span></div>
<br />MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-43149706385508724662018-02-07T07:08:00.000-08:002018-02-07T07:08:35.627-08:00Breaking Out of the Norm<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB1aw5ILVGK9MRL0fyl0haQuERJeS9MhAHSGinirnIyaqFgOPlLyiVUbWbIJUWxlnpxuFLTpWIqkiv6k_kxlQdPRuKQ5bpVrer3qqwLV08h603vP1ra3k7Fd103Ih40b7_SmeajKcns_k/s1600/Breaking+out+of+the+norm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB1aw5ILVGK9MRL0fyl0haQuERJeS9MhAHSGinirnIyaqFgOPlLyiVUbWbIJUWxlnpxuFLTpWIqkiv6k_kxlQdPRuKQ5bpVrer3qqwLV08h603vP1ra3k7Fd103Ih40b7_SmeajKcns_k/s400/Breaking+out+of+the+norm.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It has been a long time since I tried to blog. I think too much about what I am trying to say. So here is a different approach inspired by a few amazing Twitter friends. First topic, a digital breakout.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Tom (my amazing partner in crime and coleader of the our Science Heroes Classroom game) and I started our new unit with Amplify science about Earth features. However, I had to take my son to the dentist. I thought I would use this as an opportunity to try my hand at a gamified approach to being out; a digital breakout.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you don’t know, a digital breakout is a set up where students work through different puzzles or challenges to get keywords or numbers which open locks to finish a challenge. Digitally, this can be created on Google site using forms. It takes some work but the results (if done right) are pretty cool.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I started by watching an amazing video by Meagan Kelly (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZu4BTUAGW8">found here</a>) and just began building. After putting together the Science Heroes website and playing around a lot with Google Forms as exit tickets it wasn’t all that hard to put together and I learned a thing or two about answer verification, which is awesome. Tom suggested four locks for our first go. Our initial key was found in an article about Sue, the big T-Rex fossils in Chicago. Correct answers provided the key. For key two, I pushed them to a puzzle online which needed to be completed to help answer questions. Key three found students having to rearrange a web address in google slides to find a site to help them get the answers. The final hid a link in a picture, that gave them the information that they needed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Tom, Guy (our awesome media specialist) and my wife all tested it for me. This was a huge blessing as we were able to catch a few problems and make it hum. I highly recommend you get people to try it first.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You can find the breakout<a href="https://sites.google.com/foresthills.edu/rock-and-fossil-breakout/home"> here</a>.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQssaF185u2AhbNqHyO_ZWXo9QD-dzAeEPkzPanU-zD_FDiwbFg5rqsKcLzpgTUlUtNrUZbtphIPmm8ESyytDWRUR9DiuJ9CrtJp0HNE_Mg6L9T53f7Lzv3CPFFPUTKhoiyvBLdGp654Y/s1600/IMG_1316.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQssaF185u2AhbNqHyO_ZWXo9QD-dzAeEPkzPanU-zD_FDiwbFg5rqsKcLzpgTUlUtNrUZbtphIPmm8ESyytDWRUR9DiuJ9CrtJp0HNE_Mg6L9T53f7Lzv3CPFFPUTKhoiyvBLdGp654Y/s320/IMG_1316.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Look at this crew working hard.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />I set it up for my sub, and only a few kids were able to finish during class. My intention was to give them some more time when I was there the next day, but to my surprise a few of them went on to finish that night at home. When I got back I was greeted by many kids saying that they wanted more time and asking when we would do this again. The locks all seemed to hit just the right notes and none were too easy or difficult. The activity provides the students with a solid foundation for the unit, giving them some introduction in to layers of rock, fossils, and the area of the country we are focusing on.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidwC0FJmb-tU6EtPXVZudLy5S8LibRpC-W6K3BIZG61Tc0T_yf1DcWJilzbgLe-FyCdze1_11os9407A5Zz0xY4NS5uxM8G6h54-m5Ahg4RNf65cbp1QVrVw2I8FN2tgfEDwvEBNyCrjs/s1600/IMG_1311.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidwC0FJmb-tU6EtPXVZudLy5S8LibRpC-W6K3BIZG61Tc0T_yf1DcWJilzbgLe-FyCdze1_11os9407A5Zz0xY4NS5uxM8G6h54-m5Ahg4RNf65cbp1QVrVw2I8FN2tgfEDwvEBNyCrjs/s320/IMG_1311.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So intense.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On the flip side, I never want to miss being there when I unleash it on them again. I missed their initial triumphs, and while I got to experience many of them beaming with pride when they finished the next day, it would have been nice to be there for it all. Also, while I think this was a great introduction to this sort of activity, they can handle a lot of challenge and come through. That perseverance is so key to teaching the grit. Going forward I want to work in a video and maybe add some more cross curriculum elements, but it was definitely worth the time to learn and build going forward.</span><br />
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MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-27535293558618924042017-07-22T10:41:00.001-07:002017-07-22T10:41:15.453-07:00(Em)Powering Up my Students<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A little background, coming out of college and moving to Roanoke, I got really deep into a collectible card game called Marvel VS System. It was an especially nerdy time in my life. Yeah, let that one sink in for a second. I really enjoyed all aspects of it. Collecting, building decks, and especially getting together with people to play. So when I read about the item concept in Explore Like a Pirate, my mind was immediately drawn to it. It is becoming a bit of an obsession. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I dabbled in power ups/items last year just try my hand at it. My kids liked them. They liked having them. They liked when they were random drops during class. They liked earning them by doing things. The items added to the game, which added to class. Having the items also meant that I was not bribing the students with candy and other stuff. They earned items that pointed them back toward the class. However, there was more to it than that. It gave them power to impact the class. Empowerment has a huge impact on students investment in a classroom. If students can impact little things that matter to them, they will care more about what happens in class. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That brings us to this summer, and I am all in. My awesome new partner Tom and I are incorporating a superhero theme for our science classes, which I will pull into my math class in a slightly different way thanks to an excellent idea from Justin Willetts, @jwilletts12 on Twitter. A big component of that will be our collectible Power Up cards. Students will all be getting a baseball card sleeve to keep an inventory of 9 cards. They can hang on to the cards, trade for ones that suit their personality, or use them in different class situations.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Currently, I am using the website GoDeckYourself.com, which allows for the creation of your own cards. It has templates that are easy to use and offer different choices. Personally, though, I have some design philosophies that I hold to. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One, there have to be cards that appeal to all types of learners. Cards that will affect my explorers, socializers, achievers, and a term I have borrowed to call my griefers, philanthropist.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two, and this is important to me as the father of a girl, my cards must feature female superheroes as well. This can be tricky, as comic book art is not extremely tactful all the time.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last, there have to be commons, rares, and unicorns. Cards that many of the students have, cards that not every student will have, and cards that only a few will get the entire year. Those unicorns, man, they have to be special.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here is a taste of what my fourth graders are in for.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Common Sample #1</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWwXe3vNfqQmcKAZ27J3zqEp6M2Yo-YM2Q71i3k_4tQ04-z-PsiNMHouJCIomfsEK032ZCCJdzTNTp5tT_3y_zJsZKyh7cGLbFaUSqieHqVf4JqasKiSzhH8YXGE5lFIdG5BP20z8SyBg/s1600/Sample+Common.JPG" imageanchor="1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="329" data-original-width="233" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWwXe3vNfqQmcKAZ27J3zqEp6M2Yo-YM2Q71i3k_4tQ04-z-PsiNMHouJCIomfsEK032ZCCJdzTNTp5tT_3y_zJsZKyh7cGLbFaUSqieHqVf4JqasKiSzhH8YXGE5lFIdG5BP20z8SyBg/s400/Sample+Common.JPG" width="282" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Whoops, as labeled, is geared toward my explorers. Kids who are excited to learn...constantly, and because of that may forget to bring something to school.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Common Sample #2</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimwcI8clrENe0IuBvVEi34Y-Ef7c2im3MtPBgNUsSVqy1A5bmPt3WPjWL7xx-9ytikXjWyVPHzO1yjj8gEWC1rsxKhjp2Mn7-mDTbX3ecznU6DvzdvqDIeVFPDVqX4jEDWVO67DWYUYLw/s1600/Common+Sample+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="329" data-original-width="232" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimwcI8clrENe0IuBvVEi34Y-Ef7c2im3MtPBgNUsSVqy1A5bmPt3WPjWL7xx-9ytikXjWyVPHzO1yjj8gEWC1rsxKhjp2Mn7-mDTbX3ecznU6DvzdvqDIeVFPDVqX4jEDWVO67DWYUYLw/s400/Common+Sample+2.JPG" width="281" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Partners is a card aimed at my socializes, like me. Kids who want to share all of their thoughts, but might benefit from having a sounding board.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4OD5NPJOy7VwWJTvqxXPtGOlMnOOI_HEK_F3pn_rFyEnj7fRSaSankKyRDUipEvH-1-2Sr0fK2MxwQ3oG31_OveEwvj3AXYwkGdYpwQaVNZFZ3wv9yKI0cYIkVwFaNfwE5iJxI3eKkv8/s1600/Rare+Sample.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="329" data-original-width="233" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4OD5NPJOy7VwWJTvqxXPtGOlMnOOI_HEK_F3pn_rFyEnj7fRSaSankKyRDUipEvH-1-2Sr0fK2MxwQ3oG31_OveEwvj3AXYwkGdYpwQaVNZFZ3wv9yKI0cYIkVwFaNfwE5iJxI3eKkv8/s400/Rare+Sample.JPG" width="282" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Look! Up in the Sky! is a rare. About 1 in 5 cards will be a rare card because the effect will be very cool. Look! gives the students an opportunity to get involved with sharing cool things taking place in our classroom.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Rare Sample #2</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZLCHEKq2I0R_1YYyVY55fQ8xxsaqANUApGDOVk4GojQbzUuD5lzWAMxj1AWhX340lFOUpdTt9w5iPgfAWh1jAu1BavinYyKIOhDOzMcF1RM4dIxzdvBRCZBiGQCSCTYS2fUXDx0sQnrw/s1600/Rare+Sample+Last.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="409" data-original-width="290" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZLCHEKq2I0R_1YYyVY55fQ8xxsaqANUApGDOVk4GojQbzUuD5lzWAMxj1AWhX340lFOUpdTt9w5iPgfAWh1jAu1BavinYyKIOhDOzMcF1RM4dIxzdvBRCZBiGQCSCTYS2fUXDx0sQnrw/s320/Rare+Sample+Last.JPG" width="226" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Shine the Signal is for the kid who can not contain the desire to share that they know something. This card is an outlet for that kid, it gives them the opportunity to take over for a short time and be the center of attention. That said, giving them a number of uses forces them to choose wisely.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These are just some of my 12 rares and 16 common cards. I am not ready to share unicorn cards, they will be given in very special circumstances. I am also planning to introduce Villain cards or Schemes in the second half of the year, but those are only in the brainstorming stage. If you want to see the rest of the set, let me know on Twitter, I would be happy to share. </span></div>
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MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-33811960475621391432017-06-12T06:46:00.000-07:002017-06-12T06:46:08.230-07:00Keep the Fire Burning<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have a peace, y’all. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">This school year was outstanding. My students made some amazing extra curricular projects. We had fun and relivant lessons. My classroom dipped it’s toes into gamificiation and it rocked. My peers nominated me as teacher of the year for our school. I found a powerful weekly professional learning network on twitter (#XPLAP Tuesday nights at 10pm eastern). I also got to try my hand at speaking at conferences, which was unforgettable. </span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/cpysIlhyD6bjldeUz03JckFMjXpJcfR_DP086pBbj92Uxsl12Yqm0whyEgO8FGb8uJA3IQ=s400" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/cpysIlhyD6bjldeUz03JckFMjXpJcfR_DP086pBbj92Uxsl12Yqm0whyEgO8FGb8uJA3IQ=s400" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So...how do you top it?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Well, that is where the peace comes in. You see, right now I am standing at the edge of uncertainty. My home is on sale, my wife and I have resigned, and some time in the next two months we will move ourselves to Ohio. After 12 years of becoming who we are; growing, learning, and meeting a lot of great people, it is time to go home. For all that is yet to be revealed, there is one thing I know. I can not stop now.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have a job with the Forest Hills School District in Cincinnati and I can not give up on the momentum. I have aspirations of a fully gamified science class built on students being given a classification based on what kind of gamer that they are. I get one group of math, and you can bet it is going to be one piratey group. I want to go all, or mostly google classroom. I am already brainstorming a couple of project ideas based on the work of Kevin Honeycutt (If you are an educator and you don’t know him, look him up). I am hoping to get back into being involved with the Extra Life charity and having another evening of gaming for children’s cancer research. I have every intention to collaborate both in and outside of my building. I am going to seek out opportunities to speak, and remain a regular with my weekly twitter chat folks. The fire is burning and I don’t want to stop. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-5b4f89d9-9c84-1673-aa4a-20f3d8a97d42"></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Personally, I get see my Mom and Dad. My kids get both sets of grandparents. My wife and I get a little bit of a reset. For the things I don’t know, there is a lot that I do. For this reason, I have a peace, y’all. </span></span></div>
MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-45583670793041248892017-04-11T05:33:00.001-07:002017-04-11T05:33:35.989-07:00The Day Before Spring Break: Experimentation Day<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The week before spring break can be tough. Kids are ready and excited, which finds them not making the best choices. There is a lot to wrap up and square away, because as soon as we get back, it is business time. The countdown to standardized testing will be on. This year, we finished a unit on Thursday, so we had a Friday to relax a bit. I love days like this. I call them experimentation days. I get to try some crazy idea with my students. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For this experiment, we played a review game that I have been toying with for a while called Tumbling Towers. Like all good games there is story to set it up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"You are a member of an island tribe. Your people are constantly warring with the surrounding islands to prove who is the best. Now to demonstrate your superiority, you have begun construction of a tower to give other islands no choice but to look up to you . However, as you begin to build, you notice the other islands have the same idea. You will not stand for this! Luckily, these islands also have an endless supply of boulders. When the time is right, you will unleash them on your unsuspecting neighbors. Get ready to watch the Tumbling Towers!"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>The main rules of the game</u></span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Your group works out a problem on the board and come to a consensus. (We played with white boards.)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If your team is correct, you roll a <span style="color: red;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">RED</span> </span>and <span style="color: lime;"><span style="color: #38761d;">GREEN</span> </span>dice. The Green is the number of one inch wooden cubes your team gets to use to build a tower. The Red is the number of stripes of paper your team gets to build boulders to throw at other island's towers. All strips of paper could be used individually or wrapped together to make larger boulders. (I used recycled paper in fourths.)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Teams have to use the blocks to build the towers inside of a square of tape on their tables. (Pictured below) </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If the tower falls, students may reuse any block that does not fall outside the tape. Fallen blocks outside the tape are lost.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The goal is to build the tallest tower of all without having it knocked down by other teams boulders.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>Bumping rules</u></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If you bump your own table and your tower falls, all rules apply. So be careful.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If you bump someone else's table. They get to rebuild and you will be removed from the activity. Sabotage will not be tolerated. You may not leave your island.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> All power ups were usable. I even offered a set this week that worked well for the game.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigQXW910Yitj1Gtp-vuhQEBC7MBQwKRDsmYzMlvjjs7XQ_RaGshPXhCy4OJjk4z68YGbnJsID90nwVCrO89zOBDwnqY9mfcxx0mYS-8a5VSDTVD94n5cPtIbKw1gHyusOlMCXY5LMNc_o/s1600/Towers+Weapons+Set.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigQXW910Yitj1Gtp-vuhQEBC7MBQwKRDsmYzMlvjjs7XQ_RaGshPXhCy4OJjk4z68YGbnJsID90nwVCrO89zOBDwnqY9mfcxx0mYS-8a5VSDTVD94n5cPtIbKw1gHyusOlMCXY5LMNc_o/s640/Towers+Weapons+Set.PNG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For the game I set up our tables like so.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnV0EzTmUiT6xIxKWjTNKScbKhfJjI8All8e8rf5UO0oZHPyHSeVMazKokgKBfKS5Q0wLADLVDPdvBVuEFUJyNHzOxp0dwas_wCixZ1S65sn4sphDYlX8_meenOoFtqubHXlwQqXPw76E/s1600/Tumble+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnV0EzTmUiT6xIxKWjTNKScbKhfJjI8All8e8rf5UO0oZHPyHSeVMazKokgKBfKS5Q0wLADLVDPdvBVuEFUJyNHzOxp0dwas_wCixZ1S65sn4sphDYlX8_meenOoFtqubHXlwQqXPw76E/s320/Tumble+3.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This added a nice feel to the class. It increased the island theme and the students knew something was up the second they walked in the door. To throw boulders, students had to stand at the end of the table. This added an element of strategy. The easy shot was the table next to you, but you have to beware revenge. It also added excitement for the team brave enough to take a shot all the way across the void. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimnaNTiozYcbjknsWytfRPAF06Q2mENBhb_Q72TVPKJz0i_VzvyKR0xfxV6-kxekdcPLNwur7bX4FwGzxuI0NTNEX-OtnSPNWYUTJPiL4AkMZOBz49kcPeuyB6wPwG027WthwglBWZhRs/s1600/Tumble+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimnaNTiozYcbjknsWytfRPAF06Q2mENBhb_Q72TVPKJz0i_VzvyKR0xfxV6-kxekdcPLNwur7bX4FwGzxuI0NTNEX-OtnSPNWYUTJPiL4AkMZOBz49kcPeuyB6wPwG027WthwglBWZhRs/s320/Tumble+1.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The game was immediately understandable to my students and was a huge hit. They had a blast strategizing their moves, deciding how big to make their boulders, and when to build up or expand the base. Depending on the class, we got 8 to 10 questions in during the game, this including modeling and corrections if students forgot an older topic. Work was not rushed because correct answers mattered. These experimental days can sometimes be things that I never return to. Tumbling Towers will be back, and likely sooner than later.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxGFokZOzpaHVH0sgw5CN7uOScBVvA6OXVK_CFkbF2Jcz18EoFvuB9ugYF5SoM9W7_tJ_MvEYcawn5aynz2oEXGlr43aWB2AQoBZgbOtUVyxld5Fzo7au2sHfz8nf4Kztha384KaJE9Vs/s1600/Tumble+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxGFokZOzpaHVH0sgw5CN7uOScBVvA6OXVK_CFkbF2Jcz18EoFvuB9ugYF5SoM9W7_tJ_MvEYcawn5aynz2oEXGlr43aWB2AQoBZgbOtUVyxld5Fzo7au2sHfz8nf4Kztha384KaJE9Vs/s320/Tumble+2.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-79151630650408164022017-02-18T17:02:00.001-08:002017-02-19T14:41:51.462-08:00Turn Based Strategy X Probability<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So, I went for it. I pulled my favorite style of game into my class. I actually turned my class into a turn based strategy game, and it worked...on the second try. </span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-cc9ecd6d-53d1-6ec8-71f5-8f671d26a130" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A little over a week ago I was partaking in the #XPLAP chat on Twitter, which if you don’t participate in something educationally on twitter and you teach, you totally need to. During the chat, the idea of using an hourglass came up, which lead some back and forth that looked something like this…</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibShgIy6OgHn4MhPe0jOEbSjiX4lHeuGl9wLOrwB8QVudYH0DkGmMEqMpwmDlHmYgLxNceVR4wuBSnnImg69qB2QgjQCwYbNBm-cnQQhlb5z2WhmjWXLQCCom1rC4nJWEIX_UkXvMg4Nw/s1600/Twitter.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibShgIy6OgHn4MhPe0jOEbSjiX4lHeuGl9wLOrwB8QVudYH0DkGmMEqMpwmDlHmYgLxNceVR4wuBSnnImg69qB2QgjQCwYbNBm-cnQQhlb5z2WhmjWXLQCCom1rC4nJWEIX_UkXvMg4Nw/s320/Twitter.PNG" width="180" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">You should totally follow both of these guys by the way. Great educational minds.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The gist of the conversation was that the room is the battle field for a strategy game. As we are studying probability I thought it would be a good opportunity to give this a try. As I am currently playing a lot of Fire Emblem Heroes, Nintendo’s turn based strategy mobile game, I drew some of my inspiration from that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I wanted to make sure we had a play area with a grid. I used rubber bases from the gym class. Color coding would have been awesome, but in order to get a 5 by 7 play area I took every rubber base that they had. Another thing I thought would add something was classes with different movements, abilities, and weapons. Though, I narrowed it down to movements and abilities as assigning weapons limits the mathematical possibilities. Giving them one weapon and they would be repeating the same formula over and over. Instead, the probability to be worked out was assigned to their place on the play area. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">My grid based floor and the lettered version of it on the board.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Spectators, those not playing, would complete the math for a given player involved in the match. This would hopefully maintain engagement as I had no idea how long it would take. I even created a ‘Tactician's Log’ for them to keep up with.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-cc9ecd6d-5888-a9e6-f064-66cf3cd2e72d"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">During the game students were allowed to take 1, 2, or 3 steps on their turn. Then depending on the space they were standing on, they would be given a situation in order to attempt to eliminate another player. They would use dice, spinners, a set of 10 cards, or a bag with foam squares in it. Each space had it’s own circumstance, some more probable than others. Those situations were the ones the spectators would have to work out. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As I said, the first block to try it didn’t go so hot. I put too much on them and I realized it. They seemed to get it, but asking them to follow different players meant I had to make sure different groups were doing different things all while half the class waited. Too many balls in the air. Once that class left, I gave a few seconds of thought to throwing in the towel on the concept altogether, but I knew it could work. I just needed to streamline a bit. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Students had to roll two dice, spin two spinners, select two cards, or pull two squares from a bag in order to eliminate other players.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">During lunch, I changed two things and it made all the difference. I had kids not playing focus on one player per turn, which increased their engagement. It allowed more students to see what I was going for in my essential question; how can we use probability to help inform decision making? I also sped up turns by having the other members of the team complete their actions while non players worked out their math. I am so glad I didn’t give up on it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A big thank you goes out to Mr. Taylor (@TeacherRunner42 on Twitter) for being a sounding board on the lesson. I hope it is the beginning of more to come. </span></span></div>
MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-68354025312980148342017-02-01T19:44:00.000-08:002017-02-01T19:44:35.285-08:00Take them to the dungeon!<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When I first started reading the book about Gamification, it happened to coincide with me correcting one of my larger oversights as a Nintendo fan: I finally played the Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask. One thing that I set out to do was create a dungeon. Not a "Take them to the dungeon!" prison style dungeon. In video games, like the Legend of Zelda, a dungeon is a place that you go to find new objects, solve puzzles, battle ugly monsters, and ultimately build up your character.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In Quest for the Shards of Light, my students would be visiting the Jungle Temple of Kip Cel Flahn. The name is ridiculous, but we are studying the Keep Change Flip strategy of dividing fractions, so K, C, and F had to be there. My original goal was to present this as a performance task, but in mapping out the unit, I had a two day opening. It was a perfect fit and it would be so much better than a standard practice in the form of worksheets. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The dungeon activity started with a take on the collapsing floor trope of adventure films, like Indiana Jones. They had to solve division problems with fractions. If the quotient was greater than 5 then it was safe to step there. The groups had to work together to find the safest path to cross the room. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For the second area, I knew that I wanted to include one branching path to give the students some choice. I went very basic with a hard room or a basic room. If they choose the basic room the work would be pretty standard and more what they were used to. If they choose the hard room however, I told them it would really push them. However the reward would be greater if they took that route. This area had two parts, a review of ordering fractions, decimals, and percents followed by three division problems with mixed numbers which they would solve and then put the answers in ascending order. The harder versions required the students to convert the fractions all the way to the third of fourth place in decimal form. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The final area was six problems that would indicate which letters to use in a word. My original thought was to jumble the letters. However, this time, I decided to be a bit nicer since it was our first try. I choose the classic line from the Lord of the Rings, "Not all who wander are lost." The letters and answers would correspond to the word wander. This would turn around to bite me a bit, but I will get into that next time.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-lLb8y_DDVKL7Ha1PqXQix4dp7OmCAny4OakNtixINNoUSuCO8n_DnVchKxu_A_eKJyZnO3cKk2QgcgiZFOpWCJMvb0VU8hjVsqcSWbGlll2SYVtMube_urU2Ws4F6ELDoOBNQB_hyog/s1600/Jungle+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-lLb8y_DDVKL7Ha1PqXQix4dp7OmCAny4OakNtixINNoUSuCO8n_DnVchKxu_A_eKJyZnO3cKk2QgcgiZFOpWCJMvb0VU8hjVsqcSWbGlll2SYVtMube_urU2Ws4F6ELDoOBNQB_hyog/s320/Jungle+2.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In preparing the activity, I did two rather enjoyable things. First, I added an element of story to the activity. As students went from one challenge to the next, there was a narrative to their journey. This was fun to write and really made me feel like this was something special. The other aspect I added was pictures like the ones above. The pictures are intended to give this, and future dungeons, a flavor of their own. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With the activity set, I made the copies and prepared for what I hoped would be something really great...but to hear about that you will have to wait until next time.</span>MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-32746197330937157622017-01-29T13:33:00.001-08:002017-01-29T13:33:40.552-08:00That would be so cool<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In games there are few things cooler than getting something new. In video games like new guns in Ratchet and Clank or new items in Animal Crossing. In board games you can buy extra abilities in King of Tokyo or resource cards in Settlers of Catan. These things keep the game exciting and change the way that you play.</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-f344efb8-ec20-4f85-7dbf-c5a80229c02e" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A few weeks in and there are now two items in our classroom game. The bronze sword and the goblet of champions. The sword I classified as a weapon. All weapons can be used during battle games. They will give your team points in the game and/or effect other teams. For example, the bronze sword is worth 50 points and the user can choose a team that has to skip a turn.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The goblet is an item. Items are for use in other areas of our game. They can increase the XP students receive, who is showing work on the board, and even the questions being asked in class. The goblet of champions allows students to increase the XP they receive for an activity by 10%. This will come in handy during activities like dungeons and boss battles that reward students with higher experience points at the end.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Because of our busy schedule and snow days we have only been in our game for about a week. We played our first battle game two weeks ago. During the game a student looked at me and said, “Mr. Renard, can I use my sword now?” I told him sure. “It’s in my locker, can I go grab it?” </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Nope. You have to have it.” This was a good teaching moment. I explained to the students that if he had brought the sword to class that would have changed the whole game. Several students made comments about how cool that would have been. They were right. Items create moments, and there are plenty to come.</span></span></div>
MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-86712586822530621602017-01-21T17:40:00.000-08:002017-01-21T17:40:03.506-08:00Battle Game #1: EnvelopesWhat is a Battle Game? Well, in short, it is me taking a worksheet and applying that practice to a game that we play in class allowing students to reap rewards towards Quest for the Shards of Light while practicing our current skills. For our first game, we played variation of a game I had seen several places before. In this game, the students complete a problem on the board. I watch as they work quietly until everyone at their table is in agreement, then they raise their hands. I mark down their order before I check answers, this way I don't miss who was next. Then I check their work to be sure each member of the group has worked it out to the correct answer. Beforehand, I tell them that if their clan is incorrect they will drop to the back of the pack, while they fix the problem.<br />
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Once the answers have been verified, we move over to a table containing 5 to 7 envelopes. I explain that in the envelopes there is one 50 point card. The cards to its right or left decrease by the same amount, so let's say they are 40, then 30's, then 20's and so on as needed (see the picture below). The clan that finished first picks first. They open the envelope and we record their score. From here there are two ways to play. One, they can leave their score card to share what they have then you can allow other groups to attempt to use those clues to solve the puzzle. The other way you can play is to let students leave a sticky note with either a truth or fib written on it. They can choose to help the next team, or not.<br />
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After five to eight rounds the totals are tallied for the last time and students reap their rewards. For this game, I gave the top three a training badge and some extra Class XP. The winning team also received our first special item; The Goblet of Champions. This closing reward is something that I am going to be playing around with as we go.<br />
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The experience was really fun across all of my classes. There were memorable comments, great teamwork, and a lot of agonizing over which envelope to pick. The last aspect that my students won't find out about until Monday is that I will be posting classroom world records for each of our battle games. That way, when I need to recycle a game to use there is an added incentive to be excited about.MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-83370704394453462122017-01-18T19:23:00.002-08:002017-01-18T19:23:34.087-08:00Finding Our Feet...Stupid Snow/Testing/Holiday/Dr. AppointmentOh man. It just got real.<br />
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I put up the first leaderboards in my classroom today, and you would think it were an episode of Saved By the Bell where all the students were checking to see what role they got in the big play (which, oddly enough, is not a picture I can find on Google). It was a much needed shot in the arm.<br />
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The thing was, it wasn't supposed to take this long. We started this experience the day we got back from Christmas Break and we had two days. Then, over the weekend, we got snow which put us out of school on Monday and Tuesday. After that my students needed to complete a two day standardized test. The next day I was out for a routine doctor's appointment...right before a 3 day weekend. Consequently, this is also why the writing has been a tad slow. Sorry.<br />
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That said, those leaderboards really brought this home. Kids quickly looked for their own names, asked who others were, and vowed to catch or surpass friends. Today, participation was up. Several students wanted to volunteer multiple times, and it wasn't the same who were doing things previously. I also saw encouragement from other, less brave members of the clans.<br />
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Watching them figure some of the conventions of the game out is really cool. It is a trend that I hope continues as I introduce more and more into the classroom game. Tomorrow, our first class battle.<br />
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<br />MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-41008188477223569622017-01-12T19:20:00.000-08:002017-01-12T19:28:51.772-08:00That MomentI have always been someone who, upon hearing about a good education idea or product, has assimilated it into my classroom if at all possible. I am kind of a hoarder of best practices. Working in groups and coaching more than lecturing, sure. Incorporating something like Classflow or Google Classroom if the technology is available, that is a good idea for the 21 century classroom. Add hooks to material that, maybe doesn't excite your average 9 to 13 year old to draw them in, that makes total sense. Building toward larger, more real world problems? Yes, please.<br />
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All of this is just logical and, as research would suggest, good teaching in a post industrial country where we find ourselves now. How we teach kids to look at material is changing. Our classrooms are changing. Our learners are changing. So we must change too. Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, connected teachers are everywhere, in every subject, at every level. Do not be afraid to look for them. You can find people who inspire you. People who spark ideas. People who make you put the book down and shout brilliant! Why haven't I been doing this all along!?<br />
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This community can produce that moment when you know you have found something that you should have thought of a long time ago, but you never allowed yourself to go there. For me, I knew I had to give this whole Gamify thing a shot when I read about boss battles. You see, in gaming, bosses are the big challenges at the end of a stage or area where you use all of the skills and abilities you have gained to take down what is usually some big, nasty, powerful bad guy or monster. Hmm. That's weird. Using all the skills gained in an area to take on a big challenge. Sounds just like our modern unit by unit breakdown.<br />
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So I am reading Explore Like A Pirate, and the author says that his kids don't take tests, they complete boss battles. You set the students up with an enemy on the board. It could be a historical army, the villain from the story that they read, or just a big angry looking knight with an intimidating magical glow. Assign the enemy a number of strikes needed to defeat it, my recommendation is whatever amount would be needed for the groups or class to achieve a benchmark score. Then let them rip. Students, as they get older, care less and less about reaching a benchmark score (with the exception of your highly motivated learners). But you tell them that Lowthar the Devourer of Babies and Puppies is here and every correct answer counts as a hit against him, most kids want to put the troll in the ground.<br />
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Did I mention the rewards? If your classes are in full on game mode, their character should be receiving a nice experience point bump, maybe a cool item to use in class, and/or a special boss based badge (say that three times fast).<br />
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This was the moment for me. I have been beating bosses since we unwrapped the Nintendo Entertainment System when I was 5 and that big old turtle-dragon-dinosaur Bowser came waltzing into my life. Why had no one in my life ever stuck that motivation in front of me? Moreover, why wasn't I doing it for my learners?! Well, here and no further. January 26th is our first boss battle, I will tell you all about it...cause that's what blogs are for. Go forth and be awesome!MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-23417395739296650022017-01-10T05:37:00.002-08:002017-01-10T05:37:16.964-08:00Starting Slow: Not Overwhelming Yourself With New Classroom Concepts<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As I said in my last post, Mr. Matera put forth a lot of great ideas to use in the classroom, each revolving around concepts used in modern video games and board games. There were incentives, strategies, projects, games, and ideas to enhance activities that we do all the time. I knew that if I jumped in both feet and tried to do it all, I would never get this ship off the ground. So I very intentionally looked at the four most basic things I could implement; badges, experience, a leaderboard, and items.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A Badge System</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A few years ago I had heard of classroom badges. As someone who, for a short time, played a lot of Playstation games in search of gathering up all of the trophies in a game, I really relate to this topic. Students work to do objectives in the classroom that may or may not be specified. As a reward, they receive a small slip of paper with a picture on it that can be collected. If they gather a full set, they receive a bonus item. For use in the classroom.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLmTDM_Xx-JxjPLflF4jQ7QGxNlNZyv8hVCIZQZUUdx7vFh5VGwZOt3Qmocsj15RmCKBirfC6s3RA_ndcVtBTEASpwOJ-AdZK10VaoW0HKj0Ov9ctRcGV2hlHZCgUVoruDUq0ckO91P3A/s1600/Joust+Dummy.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLmTDM_Xx-JxjPLflF4jQ7QGxNlNZyv8hVCIZQZUUdx7vFh5VGwZOt3Qmocsj15RmCKBirfC6s3RA_ndcVtBTEASpwOJ-AdZK10VaoW0HKj0Ov9ctRcGV2hlHZCgUVoruDUq0ckO91P3A/s200/Joust+Dummy.PNG" width="165" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">This is an example of one of the pictures on the Training Badges that my students can earn. Finding art for these has been a lot of fun.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In my room, students can receive training badges and questing badges. Training badges are day to day activities like participation, teamwork, and maturity. Questing badges are for ungraded projects that students complete outside of class.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Experience Points and The Leaderboard</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Badges and activities each have an assigned value. As the badges are earned students get the points associated. Earning 1000 points will boast their player level. This level will give them different perks and access to items and quests.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The leaderboard is to get those competitive juices flowing. The experience is tallied in a Google Spreadsheet. It took a bit to set up, but it was worth it. My first leaderboards will go up soon, so I will share more on that later.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Items</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Matera expressed that when he started making items they seemed a bit shallow, just slips of paper that acted as homework passes and the ability to leave class a minute early (That matters so much to middle schoolers). Then when he turned the items in on the game, it really opened up what he could do. Items can affect the game in different ways. Students can get more XP, interfere with other teams during review games, and help out during boss battles (more on that later). They are also really fun to create. I will go into a lot more details as I give them out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These are the four primary elements of my classrooms game. Starting slow is the key.</span>MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-79240693932515575682017-01-07T06:34:00.003-08:002017-01-07T06:34:39.851-08:00Game On<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Over Christmas break, I had the opportunity to read the book Explore Like a Pirate: Gamification and Game-Inspired Course Design to Engage, Enrich and Elevate Your Learners by Michael Maltera. It was a really amazing experience for me, as a life long gamer. I mean, I don't know if you know anything about me but here are the shelves my television sits on...</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjECOfy_CuN2y6Ytf0lja8Wf9SSWOVWAIFp2nCbmGt_JTTT56Gshy_-GzaG4MXHHsQEcnUOMlnwDqb5Ahu_RkJfls-tUeFVDhYPs0ZDjz0NzPJKjJEPmGD-bO4NcA6-NO6T6QZ5ddG0vik/s1600/Amiibo+Shelf.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjECOfy_CuN2y6Ytf0lja8Wf9SSWOVWAIFp2nCbmGt_JTTT56Gshy_-GzaG4MXHHsQEcnUOMlnwDqb5Ahu_RkJfls-tUeFVDhYPs0ZDjz0NzPJKjJEPmGD-bO4NcA6-NO6T6QZ5ddG0vik/s320/Amiibo+Shelf.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My (family's) growing Amiibo collection and slightly camouflaged PS4 and WiiU. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While I had heard of gamification in the classroom, I had never really looked into it much because it was intimidating and I just got caught up with other ideas. However, as I read through the book I became increasingly excited. Maltera does an fantastic job of explaining all the game systems that he incorporates into his classroom. He lists the pros and cons of each concept, how to peek the interest of students who may not play a lot of games, and ideas; lots of ideas. For me though, I understood all of this. Experience points are something I have been earning in games since I was like 8. Playstation trophies, literally changed the way I played games for a few years making me want to try things I would not otherwise have done in games. Just yesterday, I got a new item in the Legend of Zelda that opened things up in a dungeon and made beating a boss so much easier. The question I kept asking myself was, why hadn't I ever considered doing this with my students?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A funny thing happened as I read the book though, the timeline kept moving forward. As I set out reading the book, I told my wife the earliest I would consider doing this was next year. When I read about the competition created by levels and leaderboards, I thought maybe it would be really good for standardized testing review. After the boss battle idea clicked, I put the book down and said, "The last nine weeks. The kids will need a good pick me up." My wife stopped reading her library book and playfully replied, "Shut up. Thursday. You will be doing this stuff in your room on Thursday." She was right. I conceded, finished the book, and had my four entry concepts ready to roll.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I introduced The Quest for the Shards of Light to my class on Thursday. Consequently, that was the same day I read about the blog for 30 challenge. So I have decided to use this space to reflect on our classes progress. If anyone is reading this, I hope you enjoy. Join us on this quest.</span>MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7738137439699647105.post-29621705633838696302016-07-08T06:05:00.001-07:002016-07-08T06:05:23.660-07:00You Matter, All of You<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I sat in my car ready to be inspired. I had just discovered the EduAllStars Podcast. After listening to Todd Nesloney (@techninjatodd on twitter), Stacey Huffine (@techninjastacey) and Chris Kessler (@iamkesler) share their mission statement for the show and 7 wonderful interviews I was growing more and more excited to listen. As I started episode 9, I was in for something that would change my perspective. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In my classroom, I have always tried hard to let my kids know how much they mean to me, how much they should mean to each other, and how lucky they are to be here. For a few years now I have explained to students on the first day of school that if they learn nothing else from me, I want them to learn that love is a choice and for the next 180 days I choose to love them. They may not always appreciate it, but I love them none the less. I give an annual Thanksgiving speech to remind them to be thankful they are in school here, sharing what life for a child their age is like in other parts of the world. When things go South in the room and bickering begins in the spring I will will talk about the Experiment in Gratitude from SoulPancake (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHv6vTKD6lg">Watch it here, it is amazing</a>) and I have the students write a letter to someone that matters to them. To be an example, I do the same. Then I read it to whoever I wrote about in front of my student. We usually cry as they watch wide eyed. I ask the kids to give what they wrote to the person that they wrote about. All of these things are designed to show kids that they matter.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Before listening to episode 9 of the show, I was pushing toward this goal of worth, but it wasn’t until I heard Angela Maiers that I realized that I needed to do more. If you have never heard of Angela (<a href="http://www.angelamaiers.com/">Here is her website</a>) she is responsible for pushing and supporting several student focused initiatives that encourage students to investigate their passion and worth. She strongly supports Genius Hour (or 20 Time). However, it was the <a href="http://www.choose2matter.org/">Choose 2 Matter</a> portion of the podcast that is just so brilliant.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That night I got to work creating a poster for my room centered around the You Matter Manifesto and after several nights of work in front of the television with my wife, I hung this in my classroom.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA0kuGSNkFkafE05ZSqiiI0E3kri5VuVxFpJZvjFh9rUnnl8K_naDesPLx0ADG9gnweqglMdtaz88R1oTrQY2_NQzNIlHUJLizXRx2KaWdsRDKzRzFiqNWkJxfEVqLddzAZRYyaYg92oc/s1600/You+Matter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA0kuGSNkFkafE05ZSqiiI0E3kri5VuVxFpJZvjFh9rUnnl8K_naDesPLx0ADG9gnweqglMdtaz88R1oTrQY2_NQzNIlHUJLizXRx2KaWdsRDKzRzFiqNWkJxfEVqLddzAZRYyaYg92oc/s320/You+Matter.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You are enough. You have influence. You are a genius. You have contributions to make. You have a gift the others need. Your actions define your impact. You are the change. You Matter. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You can’t hang words like that in your classroom, and not have them noticed. I gave kids some time to take them in and I noticed a lot of them read it. Some smiled, others looked confused, but most of them saw it. Then I took 15 minutes to explain it to each of my classes. In typical me fashion, my energy level was high. There were a lot of smiles, and I saw improvement from several students. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I revisited the manifesto throughout the year, each time using a specific point to focus on and giving examples from each class. Most really seemed to appreciate it and while there were some that didn’t seem too impacted it was very worthwhile.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have been meaning to write this post forever. For one reason or another business has kept me from doing so. However, as I reflect about the shootings in Dallas which were a response to other shootings driven by fear and value of life, it was all I could think about this morning. As teachers we need to let our students know that they matter. We need to instill in them the value that they have and contributions that they offer. That actions, positive or negative have an impact. We must stand up and teach our kids to strive to be the best that they can be or else we are giving up. As a friend of mine said last night, bad things happen in this world and being strong is a choice. We need our kids to choose to be strong, to choose to matter and contribute in a positive way. Stand up, be heard, and spread a message that you matter. We all matter.</span></span></div>
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MrRenardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03863516443092136816noreply@blogger.com1