Almost three years ago at the Pennsylvania Educational Technology Expo & Conference, I participated in a one-hour professional development session that forever changed my teaching career. This riveting session was about Empowering Students and Teachers To Change the World and was delivered by Michael Soskil, an elementary science teacher from Wallenpaupack Area School District. Among many accolades, Mike was awarded the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, the 2016 Top 10 Finalist for the Global Teacher Prize, and the 2017 PA Teacher of the Year award. The message that day was simple, yet powerful. His mode of delivery was the global collaboration tool known as Skype. We played Mystery Skype with a classroom in the Midwest and then heard inspiring stories about global collaboration projects between Mike's classroom and an oasis like learning community located in the Kibera Slum, just outside of Nairobi, Kenya called the Cheery Children Education Center. As Mike was teaching his students about ecosystems, sustainability and the importance of clean water, he reached out to Jairus Makambi, the headmaster of Cheery school through Skype in the Classroom. After Mike's students Skyped with their new friends from Kenya several times and debriefed the many challenges that plague the community, such as Cholera and other waterborne diseases, something profound happened. Mr. Soskil's learners felt empowered to help the Cheery kids. The global collaboration continued. Each classroom learned something new from the other such as lessons on how to speak or sing in Swahili in exchange for lessons about science. Meanwhile, Mike's students worked on solving the poor water quality issue at the Cheery Center through an additional partnership with other schools. This small rural learning community in northeastern Pennsylvania along with other schools around the globe were able to help the Cheery Center obtain water filters from Life Straw. The spark I received that day from Mike was that as teachers, we have amazing opportunities to empower our learners to be positive change agents in their communities. Students need to do something with their learning and learn how to solve real problems in the world! Additionally, I continue to employ Mike's mantra into my daily teaching and that is "every problem that our world faces has a solution locked inside the passions of our students." It is our job as teachers, to help students discover this life change and practice essential skills in preparation for life in the "Fourth Industrial Revolution."
Since that initial seminar with Mike, I weaved Skype into my instruction and helped my Social Studies students connect with all different places on Earth. This risk taking paid off. Never before have I seen students so engaged and productive. Global collaboration tools such as Skype, Facetime, Hangouts or Zoom allow authentic learning to thrive. We connected with the Cheery Center in the Kibera Slum to learn about the importance of overcoming poverty through education, schools in India about population challenges, a former student in Jordan about the Syrian civil war and refugee crisis, and the list goes on. On occasion, we will Skype with our partner schools for about ten minutes to simply sing songs to one another. During the 2016-2017 school year, our students partnered with several classrooms throughout the district, including our kindergarten students, to help solve a major problem at the Cheery Center. Students developed empathy through collaborating with the students at Cheery and integrated design thinking to launch their solution. Watch their campaign story, nicknamed #RaiseTheCheeryRoof. The goal to help rebuild the Cheery Center was $4000. Our learning community helped raise more than $8000! These funds also contributed to the construction of latrines and a water tank.
MASH Student team Skyping with Cheery Student team
2/20/18
This year, the opportunity to be change agents through global collaboration has once again captured the hearts of my students. Students at our high school and middle school are working alongside an international student partnership to help the Cheery Center extend to grades 7 and 8. Our students titled this movement, #1MoreStepAhead. Please watch one of their newest social media campaign videos created by MASH students. This is the Cheery Children Center Foundation site. Every learner has a part to play. Our student public relations team is coordinating fundraising events with their international partners. The art team is developing blue prints for poverty simulations. The video team is creating commercials. Students are eager to help their friends in the Kibera. They wish for these dedicated Kenyan children to attend grade seven and eight. Our learners, from all levels, are relentless in this pursuit. They are compassionate and desire to help find a solution, more than I've ever seen. This generation of students we educate are hungry for projects meant for good.
I keep in touch with Mike on Twitter. He is a global collaboration mentor, but also someone that is an agent of change and who demonstrates everyday leadership (thank you for the video, Mrs. Reeder).
I was honored to read an early copy of Mike's work, along with five other Global Teacher Prize recipients. Teaching in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Standing at the Precipice.As an educator in the trenches, I found this book to be inspirational, yet extremely practical. Using the context of the "Fourth Industrial Revolution," as mentioned above, several major questions are addressed:
Are we really preparing our students for the challenges they will face?
Will technology ever replace teachers?
The authors each have their own spin on these questions, but essentially, they all support the urgency for education to be rooted in human relationships and empathy. We must empower our students to solve problems with "solutionary and socially conscious" mindsets way before they graduate.
This book fuels my purpose to help students become citizens, actively involved in bringing positive change to their world community. Best of all, the authors provide dozens of tried and true examples of how to put their ideas into practice. Learn from the best teachers from around the globe. Their book is available on Amazon. All proceeds go towards global teacher projects. Let me know if you order a copy! I highly recommend reading this book. It is a game changer.
Follow the authors on Twitter (even if do not have Twitter):
Thank you to Mike and the five amazing co-authors of Teaching in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Standing at the Precipice for your dedication, patience and leadership in helping teachers like me take steps in empowering our students.
What is one thing you would change in your classes to enhance the student learning experience?
This BIG thinking or dreaming is powerful. I just watched this video from SpaceX about their recent successes with launch rockets returning back to the launch pad. I was reminded of moonshot thinking.
For me, big thinking comes from a place of reflection, especially after those lessons that didn't go as planned. Have you ever had those days?
My Period 1 APHUG Students
My Period 1 APHUG Students
Here's an example of one of those days just the other day!
My students and I were recently learning about why people around the world have different standards of living. Economic development, specifically the impact of weath, health, and access to knowledge on human lives, is one of the major themes in our 10th grade AP Human Geography and World Cultures curriculum. Our Social Studies transfer goal of analyzing perspectives drives this section. In the activity depicted in these images, each student posted their assigned country statistics, organized in order of their Human Development Index number. I prompted students to explore the data; observe, look for patterns, create hypotheses for global development. Long story short, my students did a good job. Many of them did exactly what I asked them to do but, for some, the new activity was an act of confusion. Some were still unsure what concepts such as Infant Mortality Rate or the Secondary Sector truly meant. How could they compare numbers if they didn't grasp the vocabulary. That's my bad. After reflecting, I took notes on my lesson plans for next time on how to make the experience better.
Think Big But Start Small
I pick up ideas from my colleagues all the time. I work closely with Jen and Anthony. I'm constantly learning from these innovate teachers. I learn from all of my MASH colleagues when I hear students describe what they're learning in class, see Twitter posts on #MASHteach and #MASDproud, or simply just catch up with someone at the infamous room 239 copier. There's all of these ideas but so little time. Where do I begin and how do I fix this lesson for next time? I decided to experiment and modify a differentiation technique that Sandy Bohrer implements with her ELA students which is blended learning. According to TeachThought, this technique is the "use of both face-to-face and eLearning approaches to deliver learning experiences (as opposed to direct instruction)." In short, this graphic illustrates exactly what I was looking for.
I wanted to try something that allowed me to structure individual progress and especially work with struggling students. I observed Sandy during my planning period and discovered a method that works well with small or large classes, comprised with students from different ability levels.
Sandy's ELA Class: Station Rotation
Sandy's ELA Class: Station Rotation
I started small. I examined three days worth of plans for one lesson. I then came up with several stations, including one that was a teacher-student conference. Each station included an activity that varied in process or product. I created groups ahead of time.
When I tried this in class the first time, I had to definitely make adjustments with activities. I also had to set student expectations for this learning environment. I've learned to fail forward! The return on instruction was worth it. I appreciate Sandy's dedication to her craft. This instructional approach allowed her to conference with each student in her class over the course of a few days. The relationships built in this process are instrumental to the success of her students.
This process reminds me of the importance of thinking big and starting small, while always thinking about what's best for your students. Here's an additional blended learning resource that I was given by an educator from Dallastown School District. Check it out!
I look forward to learning and sharing more about this technique.
Storytelling is one of the oldest and most effective instructional methods used among cultures around the world. Ask anyone to share a story from their childhood and I'm confident they could recall a vivid snapshot of the moment.
In today's tech tip, I wanted to share some practical examples from our MASH learning community of how storytelling can empower students and enhance their learning.
Storytelling with maps using using Google Tour Builder
All stories have a setting; a geographical backdrop. Google Tour Builder is a free "web-based storytelling tool which lets you easily create and explore stories and places around the world."
Imagine having your students "create a tour of any subject of their choosing, zooming in to show the places where events took place, and easily integrating the story’s text, photos and videos." You can have learners navigate to each location in the storyline and help "immerse them in the relevant places through Google Earth’s imagery and the custom content you provide" (Google Tour Builder Site).
This tool can be used in many disciplines. At our most recent MASH Technology Integration Committee after school PD session about Empowered Learners, our FCS department discovered how Google Tour Builder supports their Italian Cuisine Unit instructional objectives. I'm exited to see what they come up with! Lissy Weirich, our experienced German teacher, continues to innovate
instructional methods. See her summary below of why and how she used Google Tour Builder to help her learners reach the specific learning goals.
Guten Tag! I’d like
to share a quick but effective synthesis or summary activity that Joe
recommended, a very easy program to use Tourbuilder
lets students combine a Google Earth map with photos and or videos, a choice of
icons for pins, and text.
My Level II students are currently learning about
prepositions of location as well as various geographical places, such as river,
sea, forest, lake, city, and so forth.
They are also in the process of reviewing the present perfect
tense. Thus, with the addition of
transition words, students combined both concepts with a focus on correct word
order. To model, I created a tour
through Germany using eight familiar geographical locations, telling where I
had been and what I had done there on my itinerary. After walking students through my model, they
researched a country of their choice other than Germany (to apply to a new
situation), selected five appropriate sites with photos and provided captions.
They shared them with me in GoogleDocs and students had to read at least three
of them and comment on one.
This program worked well in a world language class. They liked having a variety of choices in the
project and liked seeing the real world view of the location on the map. I also
can see uses for it in history, foreign foods, language arts, and more. The only drawback was not being able to use
the umlauts for the vowels, as there was no way to switch to a German keyboard
and cutting and pasting them was too tedious.
Lissy's Google Tour of Germany
I am inspired by Lissy's desire to try new instructional approaches with her group of students. I also admire how she allows student choice with their country selections, and an authentic way for learners to express their voice. This digital storytelling format allowed Frau's students to demonstrate their learning in an unconventional way. Check out Lissy's example here. I love that she modeled the activity for her students. Not only does this allow the teacher to get an understanding of the tool, but it also shows students what an exceptional product would look like. She also worked on this in advance of the unit and found time here and there. I respect her time management and willingness to try something new. See a student generated tour. As part of their assignment, students also provided constructive feedback to their peers. One student wrote:
I liked how you had multiple pictures for each place. The pictures were all great and your sentences weren't just simple, you tried to make them harder for you. I learned many things from your tour. Overall, great job!
Thank you Lissy for sharing your digital storytelling lesson along with rationale and feedback with us. #ItTakesATeacher! For more information about Google Tour Builder, visit their how to page.
Storytelling using WeVideo
Our students have access to WeVideo. I gave students an opportunity this fall to become storytellers of one of their assigned countries. They were asked to create a digital story that dynamically
reveals their selected culture. Possible
themes: National Geographic Episode Segment, News Special, History Channel
Segment, Food Network Episode Segment, Netflix Series Episode Segment, Digital Narrative,
Digital Children’s Story, Suspense Novel Chapter w/ sound effects, Musical,
Claymation, etc. I created some criteria and rubrics for content, as well as the product. Contact me if you would like me to share those files. The digital stories were awesome. Students added their videos to their Google Site culture tabs. After I previewed each one, I then added the videos to a YouTube playlist to support their class activity.
Here are some examples:
Juli F., 10th Grade
Morgan B., 10th Grade
I love how Juli and Morgan used WeVideo sound effects to make their stories come to life!
There are many more examples of how MASH staff is using digital storytelling techniques. I look forward to meeting with our 9th grade ELA & Social Studies teachers about their Cornerstone tasks who had their students preserve actual stories from family and community members.
Here are some ways that we can incorporate story telling throughout our instruction.
Feel free to share below how you're incorporating story telling.
