I am a big proponent of reading. I believe that reading, in any language, helps you to learn immense amounts of vocabulary and grammar structures without a single lesson or quiz. I am an avid reader myself, and I am always looking for new books for my classroom. I have begun my class library with shorter readers which the students can work through and comprehend. However, one of the challenges is that these readers are often abridged and can be a little choppy and confusing. The other issue the students have with these books are that they are boring. It is difficult to find interesting reading material which is on a doable level for the students. Even the mystery stories lack the plot depth that they crave. But seriously, in a 75-90 page reader, how much can you really expect?
Like many of you, I spend a good portion of my time over the summer trolling the Internet for great ideas and resources. While doing that today, I found a great list of 50 must read Hispanic books. Sadly, the majority of which I have never read. So, I am committing to read them all and then make them a part of my school library for the students to read. If you have any thoughts on which I should start with, let me know!
Maybe I am underestimating them, maybe if the novel was interesting enough, they would plod through the beginning to get the knowledge to make it through the book. I am going to finally really begin the SSR in class, and maybe some will go for the tougher books, not just the easy books! We shall see.....if I can say nothing else about my students, I will say that they often surprise me with the amount of work they will do if something sparks their interest.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Friday, June 14, 2013
Leaving teaching behind
Flipping my classroom has changed everything. It all began with trying to find a way to increase the fluency of my students and create a more rigorous Spanish program at my high school, but it has evolved into so much more. I have discovered so many great ideas and methods for incorporating not just the required information, but fun, real world based activities that the students love. It has become a personal journey of learning for me as well, and the best part of it all has been the people I have met along the way that have helped me continue to improve.
The biggest change for me through this whole process has been my discovery that I don't want to be a teacher anymore. Standing up in front of the class all day delivering content and leading class activities used to make me feel so happy. But, as I have continued teaching, I have realized that I just don't want to do that anymore. The traditional teacher role has brought me joy, and my students were all good enough at the content to be satisfied with their progress. During second semester, I picked up a Spanish I class, which I did not flip to maintain continuity with what their teacher had done with them the previous semester. I found that lecturing in front of the class was not where I was comfortable anymore because I knew how ineffective of a method this was. Things change and new challenges present themselves, so choices have to be made.
I have accepted the challenge of being a facilitator and leave my teaching role behind forever. I have realized that my students can take control of their own learning and they many push themselves harder than I ever would. I understand now that to move past "getting through" my class to really "appreciating and excelling", they need to be given the freedom to find ways to apply their learning to their life and I need to facilitate this happening, not dictate.
I am committed to doing this by giving students as much choice as possible in my class. As long as they can show me they are increasing fluency, I am not going to force them to conform to my ideas of fun. Let's face it, many times that are more creative than I am with their assignments, and only when that students start tapping into their creativity do they truly learn. I am moving aside to let my students be the "stars" of the classroom, and I think it is the best choice I have ever made.
Do you want to join me? Become a part of my PLN (personal learning network) and let's all work together to make our classes a place where students can express themselves with the content and surprise themselves with how much they learn because our classes are something the look forward to, not something they have to get through.
Looking for more information? Join #flipclass chat at 8EST on Twitter or #langchat on Thursdays at 8 EST on Twitter. Want more concrete information? Preorder the book Flipping 2.0 - Practical Applications for Flipping Your Class coming this August. This book is full of ideas for every content area, with a chapter by me dedicated to World Language! Select me as your author when you preorder.
Heather
The biggest change for me through this whole process has been my discovery that I don't want to be a teacher anymore. Standing up in front of the class all day delivering content and leading class activities used to make me feel so happy. But, as I have continued teaching, I have realized that I just don't want to do that anymore. The traditional teacher role has brought me joy, and my students were all good enough at the content to be satisfied with their progress. During second semester, I picked up a Spanish I class, which I did not flip to maintain continuity with what their teacher had done with them the previous semester. I found that lecturing in front of the class was not where I was comfortable anymore because I knew how ineffective of a method this was. Things change and new challenges present themselves, so choices have to be made.
I have accepted the challenge of being a facilitator and leave my teaching role behind forever. I have realized that my students can take control of their own learning and they many push themselves harder than I ever would. I understand now that to move past "getting through" my class to really "appreciating and excelling", they need to be given the freedom to find ways to apply their learning to their life and I need to facilitate this happening, not dictate.
I am committed to doing this by giving students as much choice as possible in my class. As long as they can show me they are increasing fluency, I am not going to force them to conform to my ideas of fun. Let's face it, many times that are more creative than I am with their assignments, and only when that students start tapping into their creativity do they truly learn. I am moving aside to let my students be the "stars" of the classroom, and I think it is the best choice I have ever made.
Do you want to join me? Become a part of my PLN (personal learning network) and let's all work together to make our classes a place where students can express themselves with the content and surprise themselves with how much they learn because our classes are something the look forward to, not something they have to get through.
Looking for more information? Join #flipclass chat at 8EST on Twitter or #langchat on Thursdays at 8 EST on Twitter. Want more concrete information? Preorder the book Flipping 2.0 - Practical Applications for Flipping Your Class coming this August. This book is full of ideas for every content area, with a chapter by me dedicated to World Language! Select me as your author when you preorder.
Heather
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Demonstrating Growth -Searching for a better way
The new teacher evaluation systems that are being put in place require all teachers to demonstrate student growth. This of course is something I have been doing already, but not as formally as I should be. So, I have been looking for some ideas to be able to demonstrate growth not only throughout the year, but from level to level. I have attended professional development sessions, both in general on the new requirements, as well as specifically for World Language. I am concerned that many teachers are willing to spend hours and hours of class time to effectively demonstrate growth. I am looking for something that my department and I can do that will cost minimal class time and be equally as effective.
One of my ideas is to do a common project at the end of each level. Given the curriculum of Spanish I, the project that we use for this will probably be based on family. My struggle is to work on how to evaluate the projects fairly for the different levels. A new colleagues of mine has shown me a rubric which I think may fit the bill, but it is going to require some training, not only for me, bur for our students as well. Demonstrating the quality and content of projects that will constitute an A, B, etc. will take samples and some class time. However, I think that it will be worth it not only for administration and teachers, but for the students to see how far they have come as well.
I gave a portion of this rubric a try with the final exam for my Spanish III students. Their assignment was easy - they were to create a video or presentation (for those without video capabilities) to show to foreign exchange students to introduce them to our school. Since I didn't have any samples of previous student work to demonstrate what I was looking for to the students, we spent some time talking about my expectations. Check out a copy of the assignment sheet here. Although the task was easy, completing it on a Spanish III level took more thoughts than the students had originally anticipated.
It was not enough to show rooms and people, there needed to be more detailed information using the grammatical concepts that we had learned. I really liked this project because I am trying to incorporate PBL into my class, but I have struggled with the final element, which is where the students present their work to the community. With this project, I told students that the best ones would be on the school website for real incoming exchange students.
The rubric overall worked really well. When I am grading projects, I have a tendency to be much more lenient than I am with written work because I can't help but get carried away by the quality of the presentations that the students do. This rubric kept me focused and really enabled me to give the students the grade that they deserved. I think it probably needs to be tightened up a little bit, and I still want to be able to give the effort grade, but honestly it is probably better if I don't.
I had one student/parent complaint about their grade on the final project, and I had another teacher in my department evaluate the student based upon the rubric. His evaluation matched up almost exactly with mine. That is enough for me to know that I am on the right track with the rubric. Next year I will do all summative assessments using this new rubric.
Hopefully, with more student examples and training with some formative assessments that I will use the same rubric with. Then, all of the students should understand what I am looking for, and be able to use the level of grammar and vocabulary that I know that they are capable of and be able to use the same project for multiple levels. If we begin these projects at Spanish I, by the time they get to the upper levels, it should be easy to make the necessary adjustments for them to continue to grow and be successful.
Finding a way to demonstrate student growth without detracting from what I am trying to do in the classroom will take time and lots of thought and planning, but it will be worth it. In addition to the common project, I am also looking into creating online student portfolios utilizing Google Docs with written work as well as audio files. More to come......
One of my ideas is to do a common project at the end of each level. Given the curriculum of Spanish I, the project that we use for this will probably be based on family. My struggle is to work on how to evaluate the projects fairly for the different levels. A new colleagues of mine has shown me a rubric which I think may fit the bill, but it is going to require some training, not only for me, bur for our students as well. Demonstrating the quality and content of projects that will constitute an A, B, etc. will take samples and some class time. However, I think that it will be worth it not only for administration and teachers, but for the students to see how far they have come as well.
I gave a portion of this rubric a try with the final exam for my Spanish III students. Their assignment was easy - they were to create a video or presentation (for those without video capabilities) to show to foreign exchange students to introduce them to our school. Since I didn't have any samples of previous student work to demonstrate what I was looking for to the students, we spent some time talking about my expectations. Check out a copy of the assignment sheet here. Although the task was easy, completing it on a Spanish III level took more thoughts than the students had originally anticipated.
It was not enough to show rooms and people, there needed to be more detailed information using the grammatical concepts that we had learned. I really liked this project because I am trying to incorporate PBL into my class, but I have struggled with the final element, which is where the students present their work to the community. With this project, I told students that the best ones would be on the school website for real incoming exchange students.
The rubric overall worked really well. When I am grading projects, I have a tendency to be much more lenient than I am with written work because I can't help but get carried away by the quality of the presentations that the students do. This rubric kept me focused and really enabled me to give the students the grade that they deserved. I think it probably needs to be tightened up a little bit, and I still want to be able to give the effort grade, but honestly it is probably better if I don't.
I had one student/parent complaint about their grade on the final project, and I had another teacher in my department evaluate the student based upon the rubric. His evaluation matched up almost exactly with mine. That is enough for me to know that I am on the right track with the rubric. Next year I will do all summative assessments using this new rubric.
Hopefully, with more student examples and training with some formative assessments that I will use the same rubric with. Then, all of the students should understand what I am looking for, and be able to use the level of grammar and vocabulary that I know that they are capable of and be able to use the same project for multiple levels. If we begin these projects at Spanish I, by the time they get to the upper levels, it should be easy to make the necessary adjustments for them to continue to grow and be successful.
Finding a way to demonstrate student growth without detracting from what I am trying to do in the classroom will take time and lots of thought and planning, but it will be worth it. In addition to the common project, I am also looking into creating online student portfolios utilizing Google Docs with written work as well as audio files. More to come......
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Essential question projects evaluated
As I described in an earlier blog post, I decided to have my students complete a project based on the Essential Question session presented by the ACTFL teacher of the year Yo Azama. However instead of having the students follow my content, I let them work in groups and choose their own topics. Students found their own readings and listenings based on their chosen topic. They they made presentations to the class in a formal and fun way.
So now that all of the projects are completed and graded, I have had a chance to reflect on what worked and what didn't. Overall, the projects were a great success. The feedback from the students was very positive. Since they had chosen their topics, they were all interested in their material. Many of them listened to extra selections and videos and read more than the required articles to find just the right one that met their needs. Of course I had a few doing the very bare minimum, but overall, they worked harder than I think they ever had, and best of all they were focused on real world target language activities. Additionally, since they had to do presentations as a group, so they were evaluating each other's work as well.
A recurring problem for me is how to keep the kids in the target language when they are working on projects like these. They work together with the content, often do more than required, and are peer editing each others work, but al oat always switch to English when they are talking about the project. This is a problem that I have to fix and is at the top of my list for goals next year.
The overall structure of the project worked well. Each student needed to have a summary of a reading and a listening, as well as a written letter. Their summaries were in Spanish, but I only reared bullet points. As a group, they needed the presentations as well as a vocabulary list of new words and a bibliography. However, I didn't really do anything with this information for the class overall. Next time, I need to find a way to incorporate the vocabulary and other elements into an assignment for the entire class to ensure that they truly learn from each others work. I still had the feeling that many of the students weren't gaining all they could from the presentations.
The factual presentations were all done well. I think I have finally convinced the students that a good Power Point has mostly visuals with a few key words. Although they were nervous they all presented well because they were really familiar with the information. However, the part of the presentation I was most excited about, the fun/interactive presentations were another story. I had hoped that these would be the best part of the project, however, for the majority of the students, they were the worst. The idea was for them to do something fun to involve the entire class in the presentation. Maybe my directions were faulty, but I needed their entire group to participate in giving that presentation as well. Some thought that they didn't have to participate in the presentation. Some thought that if they served a food they discussed in their factual presentation that was good enough.
Next time, I think instead of making them two presentation, I will just make it one. Hopefully that will eliminate some of the confusion. The big reason I made it two was really just to be able to fit the presentations better into the class time, so changing that isn't a really big deal.
One of the most surprising facets of the project was how the groups worked so well together. They were groups that were formed based on their topic choice, not by me or the students themselves. They were some of the most unusual groups with good mixes of high and low students, outgoing and quiet students, and many groups with students that had never worked together before.
A not so happy surprise was how much computer the the students needed to get this project completed. We spent almost two weeks either in the library or with the laptop cart in the classroom. So, if you are tech challenged at your school, this would be really hard to do.
I am excited about continuing to use this project in class. Next year, I will base all of my units on this format, and then lead up to the choice project that we just completed. I am still unsure about using it for a final exam, but the students were all in favor of it being a final. I will have to keep it in mind while working with my students next year.
So now that all of the projects are completed and graded, I have had a chance to reflect on what worked and what didn't. Overall, the projects were a great success. The feedback from the students was very positive. Since they had chosen their topics, they were all interested in their material. Many of them listened to extra selections and videos and read more than the required articles to find just the right one that met their needs. Of course I had a few doing the very bare minimum, but overall, they worked harder than I think they ever had, and best of all they were focused on real world target language activities. Additionally, since they had to do presentations as a group, so they were evaluating each other's work as well.
A recurring problem for me is how to keep the kids in the target language when they are working on projects like these. They work together with the content, often do more than required, and are peer editing each others work, but al oat always switch to English when they are talking about the project. This is a problem that I have to fix and is at the top of my list for goals next year.
The overall structure of the project worked well. Each student needed to have a summary of a reading and a listening, as well as a written letter. Their summaries were in Spanish, but I only reared bullet points. As a group, they needed the presentations as well as a vocabulary list of new words and a bibliography. However, I didn't really do anything with this information for the class overall. Next time, I need to find a way to incorporate the vocabulary and other elements into an assignment for the entire class to ensure that they truly learn from each others work. I still had the feeling that many of the students weren't gaining all they could from the presentations.
The factual presentations were all done well. I think I have finally convinced the students that a good Power Point has mostly visuals with a few key words. Although they were nervous they all presented well because they were really familiar with the information. However, the part of the presentation I was most excited about, the fun/interactive presentations were another story. I had hoped that these would be the best part of the project, however, for the majority of the students, they were the worst. The idea was for them to do something fun to involve the entire class in the presentation. Maybe my directions were faulty, but I needed their entire group to participate in giving that presentation as well. Some thought that they didn't have to participate in the presentation. Some thought that if they served a food they discussed in their factual presentation that was good enough.
Next time, I think instead of making them two presentation, I will just make it one. Hopefully that will eliminate some of the confusion. The big reason I made it two was really just to be able to fit the presentations better into the class time, so changing that isn't a really big deal.
One of the most surprising facets of the project was how the groups worked so well together. They were groups that were formed based on their topic choice, not by me or the students themselves. They were some of the most unusual groups with good mixes of high and low students, outgoing and quiet students, and many groups with students that had never worked together before.
A not so happy surprise was how much computer the the students needed to get this project completed. We spent almost two weeks either in the library or with the laptop cart in the classroom. So, if you are tech challenged at your school, this would be really hard to do.
I am excited about continuing to use this project in class. Next year, I will base all of my units on this format, and then lead up to the choice project that we just completed. I am still unsure about using it for a final exam, but the students were all in favor of it being a final. I will have to keep it in mind while working with my students next year.
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