Climate Change, Solar Ovens and Exploring Patent Law

Coming to the end of the year, there is always the challenge of how to spark Grade 7 students to keep going as well as create assignments where they can also explore their developing independence. The class had four learning goals this week:

• Science: Identify how heat is transferred and how heat loss can be reduced. 
• Science: Look at trends and evaluate the amount of greenhouse gases accumulated over time and propose courses of action to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. 
• Math: Make inferences and convincing arguments using data and the analysis of data from charts, tables and graphs that compare two attributes investigated. 
• Math: identify trends/patterns present to come to a conclusion on an argument

Science: Solar Oven Development

This week was day 2, 3 and 4 for the solar oven project. At this point, students had already determined if they wanted to be in a group, or working alone. Many had already identified the modifications they wanted to make to the "base model" and created experiment planners to test their new ideas. They had also thoroughly read through their peer's lab reports from the individually created heat labs completed over the March Break to find ideas and evidence for possible modifications. 

I really appreciated how the students bought into the hypothetical situation of being in an information bubble. They have only the results from their March Break lab reports to reference as evidence for a design modification. By doing this, students were reading through each others labs with a fine tooth comb. What was the biggest take away was how the students were trying to find ways to use the experimental results of an experiment involving putting an ice cube in a cotton or wool sock to justify a modification to their solar oven. They were able to take the results and apply them to a new situation effectively. However, hearing their discussions over how the data could show their modification showed their deep understanding and also some misperceptions of heat transfer that I had not heard until this point. 

Students who had decided to complete their own experiment are now collecting the results and determining if they want to make the results public for others to use. It was also interesting to see their excited faces during the first trial and seeing the results coming in for each modification. Students were then asked by their peers if they would make the results public or not. It was great to see students challenged with the decision of if their ideas should benefit others or just themselves. We will be wrapping up this conversation next week with an analysis of various situations where the decision of sharing scientific results for others use occurred and the outcomes afterwards. Having Grade 7s debate the purpose of copyright and patent laws will be very interesting now that they have their own personal experience. 

Documents used this week:

1. Solar Oven Student Handout
2. Solar Oven Design Template
3. Solar Oven Experiment Planner
4. Solar Oven Exit Interview Rubric

Math: Reading Graphs With a Focus on Climate Change

Since creating their lab reports from the March Break heat labs, they have developed an understanding of what is required in a proper graph. What we have been focusing on is that each graph has a story to tell, and that this story was was only told because someone had a question. When reading graphs their job is to identify what the question was that was asked and how the graph tells the story of the answer. 

I also wanted students to realize that reading a graph is not difficult, but requires them to slowly decode the information. Even the most confusing graphs can be broken down into parts that they can work to understand independently of each other prior to bringing the ideas together. 

There is a range of abilities in the class for how students can interpret visual data. With the range, some students are still working on reading a line graph while others are ready for a greater challenge. To ensure that all students were being challenged in this area, I wanted to find graphs that were all trying to tell the same story, but in a different way. This way my students, no matter which graph they received to work on, needed to tells its story to the rest of the class so that the big picture of climate change could be understood. 

To do this I went to the IPCC and used their graphs and data that explain climate change. I broke students up to work on a graph that reflected their need for challenge. Upon receiving their graph, they had 10 minutes to work independently to work through the decoding document. Then, after the 10 minutes they joined up with the rest of their group to share what they had decoded as well as where they were stuck. The final goal of the week was to create a slide show presentation to share with the rest of the class. In this presentation they needed to show the graph, explain the graph by decoding it, identify the question that was asked to make the graph, the answer to that question as well as the "why should we care". We have now started the presentations and it is really interesting to see students make connections between the stories their graphs told to the stories being told by other groups graphs.

The next step is that a board is going to be made with all of the graphs. Students will then use string to make a physical link between two graphs (one being their own) and identify what story the two graphs together are able to tell. They will then need to explore what next steps can be made to improve the outcome

Documents used this week:

1. Tuesday Slide Show Presentation
2. IPCC graphs for each group
3. Graph decoding document

Making Math More Like Science

This is my second time teaching Grade 7 Science, and once again I am blown away with the simplicity of the material but how it "blows our brains" as my students explain. As a class we have spent days talking about The Particle Theory. These 5 postulates have caused us to question everything from why does it take longer to make a cold tea than hot to the fact that we are made of the same stuff of dinosaurs. What would seem like 5 simple rules has caused all students in the class to question, explore and expand their thinking.

Having taught math for the majority of my career, I am used to parents and students feeling that the same enrichment and challenge only comes from the exploration of material beyond the curriculum. We have to leave the material of Grade 7 so that a student can become equally engrossed and inquisitive about the material as their peers. However, from observing my Science students I challenge this full heartedly. As we explore the same concepts of Science, each student is driving their thinking forward from their own questions. No new material is being presented to them, but they are using their current knowledge to ask questions and see how they can apply this thinking to the world around them. The difference I see from this and a math class is that math does not encourage student driven questions. There is a sense that an order must occur in the learning of material and that the teacher should guide it. I want to put this thinking in the garbage this year and make it so that math and science are structured in the same manner; the presentation of foundational concepts and the time for students to explore and make connections on their own.

This will be a challenge. I know from personal experience that students are taught to ask questions in science since these exhibit wonder and excitement about the material. Asking questions in math class could have a very different reaction from peers and the teacher. It could indicate an inability to grasp the concept, not able to focus on the prescribed task or "not what we are thinking of at the moment". Students, and parents, are trained to learn, practice and then perform rather than the science of learn, question, explore and perform.

To do this I have made my students first math project to be one where they need to ask their own question where proportional reasoning is the base. How far they push and go with the ideas is up to them. My last blog post goes into more details of the project. However, over this past week I am more convinced that a great exploration and student driven activities are necessary in math classes to develop the math students my high school coworkers are hoping to have come their way. They are wanting to have the thinkers, and not just the calculators.

Breaking Assumptions: International collaboration through a new project to merge data management and internet awareness

One of my favourite TED talks is Chimamanda Adichie's Power of a Single Story. Having been very lucky myself to have traveled to numerous places in the world, living and working with the people there, I have understood the challenges of having a single story of a place or people. Prior to each of my experiences, I felt that I had read up on current events, history and the culture, to only be reminded when I got there about how individual each person in a place is and how challenging it can be to feel that you "know" a place.

I wanted my students to have first hand experiences with this. In the past, I was able to sail into new ports with students and see first hand how their awareness would change as they met and participated in cultural and social activities. However when teaching at a school in Toronto, it isn't as easy. So to bring the same awareness, I developed a project (that has just started) that I hope will bring the same thoughts and reflections to my students while staying inside our school's walls. I am calling the project the Breaking Assumptions Project.

Breaking Assumptions Project

Students will be asked to go online and explore another school/city/location on a website(s). In small groups, they will be asked to use their preconceived ideas and the pictures/information they gain to create a general picture of the people that live or work in that area. They will be guided to think about demographic categories (quantitative) as well as what a day in the life would be like (qualitative). As a class they will summarize their image of the other population and send it off to them. 

The students upon receiving the information from the outside party will analyze the responses. As a group they will reflect to see if they agree or disagree with the responses. They will be guided to prove the statements true or false by creating a survey in which they can collect the information necessary. Once the survey is completed, the results will be analyzed and presented in the form of an info graphic. This info graphic as well as the results of the survey will be both posted within the school as well as sent back to the original group to better inform them about our schools population and demographics. The original group will be encouraged to respond to share if the data better informed them, or if it left them with more questions. They will be the evaluators of the success of the project by completing an evaluation created by the students who completed the survey and info graphic. 

Day 1: (lesson plan)
Through a connection at my school, I was able to make contact with a teacher at a school in India. She was very excited about being apart of a project and offered her English class who were also in middle school to participate. After emails discussing each of our goals, I sent her the following document which outlined what I was hoping her class could accomplish (click here).

In summary, her class would look at three online sites that my school had produced. Her students would complete a See/Think/Wonder activity. To do this they would identify something they saw in the online document/video/pictures, what it made them think about and then what it made them wonder about who we were as students of our school. As a class they then did a summary of who they think a student at my school would be based on the information they gained.  They sent this information back to me, and it was excellent!

My students started off their first class completing the same See/Think/Wonder on the other school's website. After sharing what they saw and thought, I shared with them that this school did the same activity for us. My girls were really excited to see what they had thought.

Each group was given one of the response sheets that the school in India had sent back to look over. The gasps and outcries told me that I had hooked them. "Why would they think that?" or "Thats not right... we are not all blonde!" were heard around the class. By the end of the class it was determined that we needed to prove or disprove the assumptions that were made. Through a discussion of how to do that which included writing individual letters, making a movie to taking photos of each person proved to be too much work or too confusing. in each class a student would come up with the idea that perhaps doing a survey of the grade, asking specific questions would allow the school in India to see the results would allow them to gain a better understanding of us. And with that, the girls were hooked and the project was laid out

Day 2:(lesson plan)
Students needed to create the survey that would prove or disprove the assumptions that were created about them. To do this we had a short class discussion about how we could make sure that the information we collected from the survey was valuable. Through this discussion they learned the definitions of bias, open and closed questions as well as how questions can lead someone to select a specific answer. Each student was provided with an assumption that was taken directly from those sent from the school in India. In a small group of three, they had to come up with what question should be on the survey that would prove or disprove the assumption that was also a closed question, unbiased and the results would be useful to them. At the end of this class the survey was created and it was sent out for students to complete.

Additional Notes:
Coming up with the questions for the survey proved to be harder than I had thought for the students. They really wanted to make sure that the questions would be unbiased and also closed. To differentiate, I ensured that the assumptions that students received would challenge them appropriately. These assumptions ranged from "All students are Canadian citizens" to "Due to small classes, students must have good relationships with their teachers". The first assumption can be translated easily into a closed question, while the latter requires some creative thinking.

As the teacher, I did not edit or change any of the questions prior to putting them into a Google Form that was used for the survey. When putting in the questions, I already could tell that some questions would not gain the feedback necessary to prove or disprove the assumption. Also some questions were not well worded and could result in many different types of responses meaning different things. When the students go through the data, we are going to have the opportunity to share which questions were challenging to answer and why. My goal is by working through the experience and feedback students will be able to see the importance of well worded questions to collect valid data.

Final Thoughts:
Going through this project for the first time has been exciting but also slightly worrisome. Since I am not editing or providing feedback though this project, my students are going to be learning from their mistakes and ultimately feeling the pressure of sending these mistakes to their audience in India. I decided prior to this project that it would be a formative activity and not be marked. Their signature assessment (marked assessment) will be an individual task that will occur after this project is completed and the students have identified how they could improve and what a good data collection methods and analysis looks like. My goal with that is for them to create the rubric by which they will be assessed based on their experience with this project.

Also, working collaboratively with someone who I have never met overseas has also been challenging since communication and understanding of goals wasn't clear at first. But I am VERY thankful that my partners at the school in India have been excellent and have made this project possible for my students. I hope that this will be provide them with the same valuable experience as it has for my girls.

No Structure Barbie Bungee - Reflection

Over the past 3 days, my Grade 8 class have been working through the popular Barbie Bungee activity. However, as I have shared in my previous post, they did it without any worksheets or guidelines. It was very coincidental that John Golden of mathhombre wrote a post challenging the worksheet approach of the activity and if an unstructured method would be more beneficial. So after 3 days and the big drops completed, I am writing the results of this first time attempt to the activity and doing it in this manner.

To start off, this activity was used as an introduction to linear relations. The goal of spending 3 days on this activity was to allow the students to generate a solution that without realizing it took into account the rate of change, independent and dependent variables, data collection and organization of data. They will compare their methods and solutions by posting them in the room. As we move through the unit the students and I will point out that they already know many of the new concepts. For example, pointing out that they already know how to calculate the rate of change, but only called it the number of centimeters each rubber band would stretch. I was worried that this final goal would not be possible due to students creating guess and check methods and estimating rather than using the necessary data. I also worried that they had no place to start, or could determine that they needed to do test trials or even consider the height of the Barbie. However, I let go and they struggled, but also came out with valuable results.

The first day was just a day of struggling (or teacher terms of practicing rigor). Given a Barbie, ruler, meter stick and 10 rubber bands my students struggled in where to start, understanding what the goal was and how they could actually get there. This was also the day of deciding what factors were important to measure. Some groups were unmotivated to do anything and decided that finding just how far 10 rubber bands would take the Barbie would be enough. I had prepared a list of probing questions and a worksheet just in case. I only gave the worksheet to 3 out of the 24 groups, but at the end of the day it was in the recycling bin as well.  The level of struggle differed between classes (I teach 4 grade 8 classes of 22 students). There were some that didn't know where to start to others that were debating the need to measure the weight of the barbie and wanting to determine how gravity was affecting the stretch. To allow for these great discussions I now know that groups needed to be small, no larger than 3 people and with something to get them started.

To get everyone started there were guidelines to create a shared document using Google Docs and also to pick up the necessary materials. Each group identified a group leader for these tasks. By doing this it made it easier for every group to get started and everyone to have a job.

To help guide their discussions and questions I asked them to use a Question Ladder which helped them outline a potential plan of attack. By the end of the day, all but three of the 24 groups had an idea of what was going on and a plan. At the end of the day I did go home wondering if this was going to be a long few days. If I had given them the outlined instructions I would have known what step they were on and no one would have been off track, but it wouldn't have allowed for the insight found on day 2.

Day 2 was the test drop day. By giving the groups a test height to work from also provided the struggling groups a goal and motivation. They were told the height at the start of the class and told that they could go to the drop site as many times as they wanted to test their method. To leave the room and test their method they needed to complete a proposal that had them describe their reasoning behind the number of rubber bands and also the evidence to back this up. This day was the magic day. Students left the room excited to test their ideas and methods, to return shocked that either their Barbie crashed to the floor or didn't come close. They headed back to the drawing board to identify what they felt was the issue and come up with a new plan or make changes to their old one. Groups came back into the room sharing how close or far they had got. By doing this the groups not only engaged in friendly competition, but also they were sharing with the other groups that it was possible to get close and at least one method worked. Since no one new each others methods or plans, everyone took ownership and pride over their Barbie and calculations. Groups went back two or three times to the test drop to alter their proposals. Each time they returned to the test drop area they needed to create a new proposal and explanation using data. This made the "just add a few" or "take a few off" not an option since they needed data as evidence to back it up. By the end of the day students came back being within 2 centimeters of the floor and ready to move on. There were groups that struggled, but did not stop. They also were motivated to make changes and improve.

Day 3 looked much like day 2. The class came in, excited and eager to know their final height. The proposals from the previous day were handed out and groups retrieved their barbies. I wrote the final height on the board and handed out their final blank proposal sheets. They hurriedly got to work, writing out their methods and completing the calculations and collecting their rubber bands. I set a clock on the board indicating when the drop time would occur. The energy in the room was great as each group felt that they could be the closest to the floor. At the end of it all, the groups were working together to divide up the responsibilities and go to the drop zone. It was a great period.

Here is an example of all of the materials one group created over the three days including their final reflection sheet. 

At the end of it all, I had Barbie's be as far away as 1.5 meters to multiple coming under the 5 centimeter goal. The final group that won was about 1-2 centimeters from the floor.

The next day (Day 4) I had the girls compare their methods, make a table of values and graph their work. The goal with this was to identify that the methods each group took were very similar, but the cause for differences resulted in how precise they collected their original data. The scatter plots of the data and showed that there was a relationship between the number of rubber bands and the distance dropped. It was at this point that I introduced the linear relations unit, the goal of collecting data and making an equation to represent that data. I also explained to them that this could have been a final test or assessment at the end of the unit and that they all have the skills necessary to do well in the unit. The goal moving forward is to ensure that they understand how the math relates to the data and the vocabulary that we use to describe it.

Looking forward, I would do this activity again next year as the introduction. Since the last day, the students have had no challenges grasping the concepts and demonstrating a good understanding of slope and rate of change. We will be preforming many more of these non-structured experiments throughout the unit and it will be interesting to see what they learned and will improve on each time.

For my IEP students I feel that they would have done better in this type of activity than in a structured one, contrary to my Spec Ed. training. I think that by giving more structure and steps, students can see it as being more places that they could mess up on and feel that they can not continue without the support of a teacher. In this method it looked like just one problem that I only had to give them support at the start and the rest was just a continuation of this.

If you have other great activities for linear relations I would love to hear of them and try them out in a similar manner. I also want to improve on how I am using the results of the activity moving forward. We did the Day 4 summary, but as we have gone ahead, I am finding it challenging to see how I can connect the material back to the activity without the standard "Look, rate of change is just like the number of elastics". This might be the extent to it, but any suggestions would be great!

The Fakebook - Social Media for the classroom

I don't know if other teachers are the same, but I find myself creating mini-lessons and projects based on found resources for courses that I don't teach. I'll come across resources for a history lesson and start to develop a project for the subject I don't teach. I feel that others can agree that you can think bigger and more creatively with something that you aren't actually going to do than with your own subject.  To have an outlet for these inspirations  I plan to share them here on my blog. Please take what you want and share your experiences. So now on to the resource:

Fakebook: A template to create fake profiles for any topic

I was first introduced to using fakebook as a tool in the classroom a few years ago by reading Richard Bryne's Free Technology for Teachers Website. The purpose of Fakebook is to allow the students to create their own personal Facebook profile page for an unknown character.

How is could be used:

In any class, Social Studies, English, Science etc. students can be given an individual or thing and create a page on it. This page would need them to explore that individual or things importance, characteristics and relationships with others. It could be done individually or in groups. If in a group of 4, each person would be in charge of a certain element in the periodic table. Between the 4 people they would be in charge of making a page for their own but also to post comments onto the others pages. This could be reflective of the type of interaction those two elements could have. For example, Lithium and Florine could have a great relationship since they "bond well" while Helium is all alone and acts very 'noble'.  The same idea of interaction could be done with historical characters, characters of a novel or mathematical operations (+, -, x, /).

There is a gallery of examples that you can see and gets ideas from and also a short 90 second video to see how the Fakebook works.




Fakebook: 90 second tutorial from History Teacher on Vimeo.