thing 6: Research Project Calculator

What is easy for you about teaching research? What are the challenges?
I think that I do a good job of getting the kids excited about the project, because I do allow them choice. Sometimes that choice is in their topic selection and other times it is in the final product. Giving kids ownership of the research keeps them more engaged and motivated. I am challenged in the "question" step and the "conclude" step. How do I get 8th graders to ask their own probing research questions? How do I get them to analyze the info and not just cut and paste?

How might the RPC Teacher Guide help you plan and manage research projects?
I went crazy printing off documents from the teacher support materials. There is so much there that I can use. I especially liked the Instructional Planning Guide as a resource for the teacher and LMS to fill out together. I could see this being a way to open up some great collaboration. I also plan on using the narrowing a topic tool with some of my students who still have a History Day topic that's too huge. No matter how many times they are told to be specific, I always have kids who want to do "WWII" for History Day. I think the specific triangle might give them the visual that they need.

One thing about history day is that it is such a drawn-out, long term project. I could see tweaking the student research planning guide and using that as a way to give the kids "checkpoints" on their progress.

How can you keep the planning, teaching and managing of research projects sane for you as a teacher?
I think that by breaking it down into manageable pieces for students, it makes the whole process much easier for me as well. I am also a big fan of the "ask 3 and then me" philosophy. That way kids are helping each other problem solve rather than just coming to me right away. I have found it helps with the "I can't find anything about my topic on the internet" kinds of questions.

I have also found that collaborating with my LMS has been a life saver as well!

What additional support or resources do you need to be successful in this area of information literacy?
Here's the question I struggle with: How do I teach kids how to write a thesis statement to help guide their research?

thing 5: teacher web sites

http://www.district112.org/cmw/8th/IndigoLoons/burnetts/index.htm

Here is the link to my web site, although I am kind of embarassed to even post it! :(
I do not update my site nearly as much as I should. I usually just "touch it up" at our district technology workshops (techbytes) that are offered in the summer. Once I have done that I rarely even look at it until the following summer. I haven't felt obligated to do much more with it than that because I am not sure any 8th graders ever use it. I can remember about a handful of times in 6 or so years that a student has commented on something they saw on my website.

It was helpful looking at it for this "assignment" because I certainly found some things that I want to change update.

I would love to have kids and parents access it more. Right now I only have one document posted. I could certainly include lecture notes and assignments more. Our tech coordinator has shown us a very simple way to do this, but I have not followed thru. Again, because I am not sure how much it would be utilized.

It makes me nervous to make visiting my web site for an assignment a requirement. I know that this has worked for some teachers, but not all kids have access to technology. I understand that MOST do, but I am uncomfortable with even one child being at a disadvantage. I fear that access to technology can make the line between haves and have nots even more distinct.

I am wondering what I can do to encourage kids and parents to use my web site as a tool more often. However, I do not want that to end up being more work for me. I guess it is all about finding the balance.

Thing 3

I think it is amazing that by setting up an aggregator account, all the information comes to me instead of having to go out to look for it. I played around with the bloglines search tool. After an initial struggle, I was able to add a middle school history teacher blog, CNN's feed, and a podcast from NPR. I think I struggled at first only because I was very unfamiliar with this tool. But after I played around a bit I was able to figure it out. It reminds me of the willingness kids have to play around with technology until they figure it out. On the other hand, adults often give up or are not even willing to figure it out. This is one area where we can certainly learn a lot from our studens...be willing to take risks and try something new.

I could see a teacher using this to gather a lot of information quickly and easily. I find it hard to find a lot of people who teach ancient world history in a middle school, so finding a blog about this subject area would allow me to collaborate in new and exciting ways. It is also a great way for me to keep on top of current events.

A couple of years ago, we had a speaker at our beginning of the year kick-off for the entire district. He spoke about RSS and showed us this tool on a screen in a huge gym. Without being able to manipulate this tool, no one understood what he was talking about and we all were very frustrated. Now that I understand what he was presenting, I wish it would have been offered as a workshop and not as a motivational speaker.

This makes me reflect on the history day blog. Maybe showing the kids on the screen wasn't enough. I have some media center time coming up...perhaps I need to let the kids log on and give it a shot at school before expecting them to try it at home.

Thing 2

My initial excitment about my History Day web site has worn off some. There was a great immediate response, but that has really diminshed. It has really turned into a way for kids to email me and get just my responses. As much as I hate to "grade" everything, I might be forced to put a point value on the students' blogs. Perhaps give bonus points for answering another student's question.

I am not ready to give up on it yet, but I am going to need to figure out how to get student buy-in.

Thing 1

Reading the article by Lippincott was at first quite intimidating to me. She talks about the need to "prepare students to be content creators within their disciplinary or professional specialities". We are no longer just dumping information into our students' brains. This is a major change in thinking for many teachers. We need to give more ownership of learning over to the students. As I reflected on this, I was reminded of integrated curriculum. CMSW has been striving the last couple of years to teach in this way. Lippincott talks about integrated curriculum in higher education and yet middle school philosophy has been pushing for this for years. I really liked the example she gave of all the types of knowledge and higher order thinking skills that go into designing a web page for a class. With authentic assessments such as this, we will be able to coach students through various tools that they need for future success. I think our Design Team was very aware of this need for 21st century skills and hope that the core teams will follow up on these ideas.

I certainly understand the need for information literacy. However, my lingering question is this: How do we give kids the skills they need when so many adults don't have these skills? There are certainly teachers who are willing to learn, but what about those who refuse to keep up with the times? As someone who just finished my specialist degree in admin, these are the kinds of questions that haunt me. What is the role of staff development?

This is where I think collaboration comes in...Schools need to be better at using the resources that we have. Chaska has some great technology staff throughout the district. Wouldn't it be great if these people were offering courses to share their expertise?

Student blog is a hit

I am SO excited about the History Day blog that I created for my students. I just introduced it yesterday in class and already a handful of students have posted comments. They are adding web sites that they have found to contain primary sources. It can be really tough to find primary sources and I love that I now have 160 kids helping each other with this challenging search. I am thinking this will really catch on!

History Day Blog

I have decided to go out on a limb and try something new! Scary and exciting at the same time! I will be putting together a History Day blog where my students can post comments, questions, web sites, etc...I am hoping it will create a forum for the kids to discuss history day. Maybe they will start answering each others questions rather than always looking to me for the answers.