Our fish project is an inquiry based project done over a 4 month period. It incorporates curricular connections in ELA, Math, Arts Ed. and Science. Creativity and collaboration are the highlighted dispositions.

Instructional expert Jim Knight visits John Cusick to observe a small groups project and discuss the classroom management techniques he is using. John and Jim discuss structured lessons, giving students respect, and finding the key to unlocking their love of learning.

Outcomes/Goal- The goal of this on-going project was for students to go through the inquiry process with a topic they were passionate about. With excitement and motivation established with the selection of the topic, students were asked to develop a guiding question(s) that directed their research. Once information was gathered, then the students self-selected a method they wished to use to showcase their answers to their inquiry question. Presentations were made to their classmates, their parents during the tri-conference interviews with the option to other classes as well.

Educational Scavenger Hunts for the 21st Century!

This app helps you facilitate scavenger hunts, where teams of students compete to find items you assign (in the physical world), then take photo evidence at each point and post it on the app. The app then keeps track of team points so you know which team won by the end.

This tool could be used for teams to complete assessments, or to provide feedback and capture an snapshot of their current level of understanding of the material. Students could also CREATE these for summative assessments to share with their peers if centered around a topic of study in the classroom.

For the bulletin board activity, I laminated four large "lightbulbs" to hang up. I use these lightbulbs for a variety of purposes; critical thinking, collaboration, big ideas from units of study and important information that students can access quickly. I use this for a variety of different subjects (ELA, Math, Science) and could easily be adapted. The possibilities are endless.

Outcome FP10.2 – Demonstrate an understanding of irrational numbers in both radical (including mixed radical) and exponent forms through: representing: identifying: simplifying: ordering: relating to rational numbers: applying exponent laws.

PART 1:

In groups of 5-6, create a project to demonstrate mastery of the above outcome. You may create a poster, PowerPoint, prezi, video, etc… if you have another idea, ask your teacher for approval. Create your project as if you are teaching this outcome to another student – what would they need to know and what examples would be useful?

I designed this assessment piece during my internship to fit into our unit on the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. This three part assignment was one that covered two outcomes; Outcome: CR 20.2, as well as Outcome: CC 20.1. Because of the combination of comprehend and respond as well as compose and create, students were able to fully explore their ideas in different mediums and situations and work towards the end goal in a new way. While reading the novel, students were continually writing down significant quotes in their Writer’s Notebooks in order to fully grasp the important parts of the novel. This was expanded upon when students would share their quotes with one another and discuss why they found them to be significant. This correlates to the competency of developing collaboration, and this collaboration was expanded upon when students were asked to talk to different individuals in their own lives to receive important life advice. This also enhanced their communication skills as students had to talk to multiple individuals for the second part of the assignment, and then interview one of the individuals in depth for the third part of the assignment. Through the process of creating their Life’s Little Instructions Book they had to be creative and expand upon their digital technologies in order to research and incorporate pearls of wisdom from other resources. The main reason for having this three-part assignment was to really get students thinking about the significance certain excerpts from the novel and how they relate to their lives today. By continuing with the assignment through different assessments (analysis, instruction book and story-telling), students become critical thinkers within the context of their own minds while also given the opportunity to really expand on an idea. Each assessment piece in this assignment combines student inquiry, collaboration and critical thinking which is an important aspect of 21st Century teaching. Overall the students really enjoyed the assignment and the products created were very well done!

Task: Your assignment is to create your own Life’s Little Instructions Book. Your booklet must contain the following:

1. Five (or more) pearls of wisdom from To Kill a Mockingbird.

2. Ten (or more) pearls of wisdom from wise people in your world. Consider asking your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, teachers, coaches, etc.

3. Ten (or more) pearls of wisdom from research sources, including other novels, books, newspapers, websites, television shows, movies, song lyrics, and speeches.

4. Five (or more) pearls of your own. Consider what you have learned thus far in your life. What advice can you offer?

Reminder: Quotes can be philosophical (“Never cut what can be untied”), practical (“Always own a good dictionary”), or humorous (“Never eat yellow snow”).

Students were excited to learn about Owls in their habitats, different kinds of owls, and their characteristics! Being able to explain why they achieved or how they achieved the mark they did make them eager to go and correct (add more details to picture) or know exactly what they had to do because they came up with the leveling system.

In partners, students researched, illustrated, and recorded a section of our classroom digital storybook about First Nations way of living. Students worked with a partner to research a topic given to them about the Plains First Nations. Various topics such as hunting techniques, transportation, homes, food, clothing, education, recreation, and religion were assigned to the partners to research. Students wrote jot notes using a graphic organizer. Once they finished their research they wrote a descriptive paragraph on their topic. Each partner was then responsible to illustrate a picture that would represent their paragraph that they wrote. Once students had typed up their good copy of their paragraphs, and finished their illustrations they spilt up their paragraph to decide who would read what part. Students rehearsed reading their paragraphs out loud to each other before they recorded their voices on the IPad. As each group was ready to record they then used the IPad to take a picture using the camera of their illustration and uploaded it into the app. Students then recorded their voices using the app.

My goal this year was to include more opportunities for students to work collaboratively and develop their critical thinking skills at the same time. The example I have chosen for my artifact is an invitation I created for our final Science unit, Rocks and Minerals. I included this invitation in my centers and this allowed students a great deal of time to explore and examine the station independently. The students loved it and it was a very popular place in our classroom! I created the invitation by gathering the rocks and minerals books and materials that we had in our school. Students were then given opportunity just to explore the rocks and minerals station before we even began the unit. Once we began the unit students began to add materials to the exploration station in the classroom.

I created a grade 4 science unit on sound. For the student’s final assessment, they got to make music by creating their own instruments. There were several components to this assessment.
The students completed a plan which included what materials they needed, how their instrument was going to make sound and change pitch and volume.
Then they had to construct their instrument.
In a sharing circle, the students shared their information and how and why they made their instrument the way it was.
Have a class jam session!
This assessment allowed students to be creative (not one of the instruments were similar)! The students had to use their critical thinking and collaboration skills to construct instruments that made sound and could change pitch and volume. There was trial and error and students going to one another for help. This assessment allowed for triangulation through conferring, observing, and the final product. The various steps also allowed for differentiation as some students were strong with writing their responses and others preferred sharing their knowledge through speech and hands on! The class jam session allowed for a celebration of learning!

The goal of my 21 Century Learning project was for students to use collaboration and communication into preparing a showcase of their learning for parents, administration and each other. The showcase would also include some technological components of their learning by using iPad tools. Twice in the school year, students prepared a showcase of their learning. They assembled their showcase of their learning and presented it in a mock interview to peers. They then presented their showcases to parents. There was a combination of paper, project, and digital samples of learning. The students followed a script which is included. Students used the Reproducibles from the book Self-Assessment and Goal Setting to guide the self-selection of their learning samples.

Students from a grade 6 class at Sk’aadgaa Naay Elementary School on Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Island, BC) were partnered with a grade 5/6 class from Kenaston, Saskatchewan. The partners conversed via email and Skype which resulted in a comparison of living in an isolated remote location with living in rural Saskatchewan. The collaborative project was centred around the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. The partnerships were given an Olympic event that they had to research and collaboratively create a Power Point presentation using Google Docs

Student collaborated together and discussed the idea of flashmobs – what they were, where they occur, why they occur, how they relate to pop culture. We utilized You Tube so that students could see these in action and garner ideas for their own which was the end goal.

Students used Educreations to create a short mini lesson on how to divide 3 digit by 1 digit numbers. Educreations is a recordable whiteboard app. It records voice, handwriting and also allows the user to insert pictures to produce personal video lessons that students can share online. Their lessons are stored online and can be accessed by students on any computer or Ipad. Students began independently to work out a plan deciding what the script would be and what “props” and/or pictures would be used in the mini lesson. They then recorded their mini lesson using the Educreations app.

This activity is designed to serve as an end of unit project after an in-depth study of Democracy in Canada. I have given an extremely condensed version of the process/topics covered before the project was assigned. 

This assessment was developed and used for a larger assignment that we had planned for in this unit. I interned in GSSD, and they go by 4 point scale (Beginning, Developing, Meeting and Exceeding), so this is what the rubric my class and I created it to be centered around. I wanted the students input on the way they were being assessed, so they understood what I was looking for and they fully understood how they were being marked. Most of the time students either gloss over their assessment and forget about it or don't even look at it at all. I wanted to change that, and thought this would be a great way to do that. We created this rubric on the smart board before I typed it up, and had students put their input into it and talk about what was fair, too easy or too hard to accomplish. I included the outcomes in the rubric as well because the students are familiar that they will be marked in levels rather than percentages now. I rewrote the outcome into an I Can (Partners Can) statement so it was easier for them to understand. This took almost a whole class to complete but by the end of it the students were more confident with what they needed to do to receive a good grade. We talked about what a good video would look like it and they could hardly wait to get started!
I find this to fit right into 21st century teaching as it opens up the communication and collaboration between myself and the students. I had the opportunity to listen to their needs and wants and incorporate some of them into the rubric. I also found that the students felt responsible for this and wanted to 'live up' to the expectations they created. This assignment allowed students to get creative and collaborate with each other for ideas as well! This was a big success for me because students knew their expectations all the time, they had tons of fun, learnt a lot about the technology and programs behind making a video and truly enjoyed being part of the assessment process. I Hope you enjoy it and maybe even use it someday in the future!

Assignment:
Create a scrapbook containing at least 10 important plot points. Include a description of the event, the page numbers the event takes place on, a short quote, an explanation of the event in relation to the novel (What does the event mean to the novel as a whole?) and an image to go along with it. Be sure to be creative.

Use any communication means to show your understanding of the novel and the events that took place. You may use any app, presentation device, or a traditional paper scrapbook, or other form to demonstrate the understanding.

Your mark will reflect how much effort you put into the project. You will be given ample class time to work on the scrapbook so make sure to use your time wisely.

In summary, the purpose of this artifact was to increase the amount of group collaboration and critical thinking in my PAA classes. Typically in my PAA class, students pick a project and follow strict plans that will lead to their resulting projects. This group activity will require students to collaborate and think critically in order to come up with their own way to accomplish a simple task.

This is part of the Heritage Saskatchewan Heritage Fairs initiative. “The Heritage Fairs program is an opportunity for students in grades 4-8 all over Saskatchewan to research, present, and explore Living Heritage topics of their choice.” https://heritagesask.ca/ We had local judges assess the projects. 3 Went on to the Regional fair and 1 is going on to the Provincial Fair.
Connection to critical thinking: Historical Thinking is a competency which is designed around 6 concepts that “help students explore the forest of historical data.” Ken Osborne. Better put, it is a way to critically think about and engage in history rather than have students simply address history at the knowledge and comprehension level of thinking. This is all based on the book The Big Six Historical Thinking Concepts by Peter Sexias and Tom Morton.