Genius Hour, also called 20% Time, gives students the opportunity to explore their own interests. I was impressed when I learned that Google gave their employees 20% of the day to work on their own projects. I am not surprised to hear that it has been very profitable as Google capitalized on good tech ideas. It’s an interesting idea to hear in education, but I can see some major positives. On the other hand, there will be many obstacles.

Pros

While adults have plenty of great ideas and Google employees seem to have no shortage of good ideas, children might be even more creative. Even though my students do not have all of the education and experiences Google employees have, they can still come up with some innovative ideas. Some of my students might really make a difference from the project.

Students are young and have yet to figure out what they want to do with their lives. While a well-rounded education focusing on English, math, science, and social studies will give students a good start, they might need to spend more time seeking their personal interests before deciding on a career. We tend to expect our students to know what they want to do by the time they apply for college. This pressure and lack of exposure results in 80% of college students changing their major at least once (Larsen, 2018). This is the perfect time to start something like the Genius Hour or 20% Time. If we can build in time to let students explore, they might be better apt to decide. Likewise, this gives them a head start and I am all for students jumping into their passions before earning that high school diploma or college degree. Of course, the Genius Hour will not force a student to choose their career now and they still can change their minds at any point (even after landing the job); it’s just about exploring those passions now.

“The Pitch” part of the project really interests me and I have a feeling it would interest my students as well. As seen in the info graphic below, the pitch can be presented Shark Tank style (Juliani, 2018). That is such a fun show to watch and I know several students like the show. It’s not a bad idea to practice pitching similar to the entrepreneurs on Shark Tank. Aside from the pitch, the rest of the process allows students to practice important brainstorming, creating, and communicating skills.

Cons

While timing was a powerful reason in support of the Genius Hour, it is certainly the largest reason against it. It’s so large in fact that I would say most teachers immediately dismiss the idea due to a lack of time. I must admit, I am in that category. There is an almost unreasonable amount of content students are expected to master that the idea of giving up 20% of my class time is laughable. I know that this problem is not just within my grade level and content area. While the timing is right for my students and the time spent might be extremely profitable, I have a hard time seeing this fit into my course. It might be more feasible for an ELA teacher who can spin almost anything to relate to ELA. Even though the project relates to two general math standards, I have too much specific math concepts to cover. It could also be reasonable for some teachers who do not teach a tested subject. Juliani (2018) explains that some elementary teachers take one hour from their science and social studies time each week to focus on this exploratory project.

Grading is another obstacle teachers must face when embarking upon this project. Each project will and should be different. It will be difficult finding specific criteria and asking students to stay within those parameters. We do not want to limit our students with a strict rubric. Instead, Juliani (2018) suggests we use a rubric assessing students’ behavior. More specifically, the rubric assesses a students’ GRIT (Guts, Resiliency, Integrity, Tenacity) throughout the process. This might be difficult to justify to parents, but giving the assignment a reasonable weight (not too many points) and showing them the rubric should help. Besides, this should be a fun project they are interested in and not one that they rush through just to get a decent grade. Hopefully, a teacher would not need to give many failing grades.

References

Juliani, A. (2018, October 15). The 10 Most Asked Questions About Genius Hour and 20% Time Projects. Retrieved July 7, 2019, from http://ajjuliani.com/the-10-most-asked-questions-about-genius-hour-and-20-time-projects/

Larsen, L. (2018, October 13). NCES report: About 80 percent of college students change major at least once. Retrieved July 7, 2019, from https://www.localnews8.com/news/education/nces-report-about-80-percent-of-college-students-change-major-at-least-once/806483499

Today I took advantage of the Hangouts application within the Google Suite. I invited my current classmate and former coworker to a video chat and she initiated the call. I had tried a practice run beforehand with my personal email on my phone and my school email on my laptop. The call went through and I could see my own image, but I could not see or hear the other screen. I was pleased that the call with my classmate worked immediately.

The experience was very positive. I have used FaceTime plenty of times before and I am a fan of video chatting. The problem with FaceTime is that it only works when both users have an Apple device. Skype works with anyone, but I always have connectivity issues, poor quality, and slow response rates. Today was my first day trying Google Hangouts and I was impressed with the quality. I can see Google Hangouts becoming a useful communication tool for me.

I might use Hangouts to hold parents meetings with parents who are unable to make it to the building for various reasons. This way, I only have to provide my email address and I can still express my tone, facial expressions, and other important nonverbal communication. It’s better than a phone call or email because my tone and face will show my attitudes and hopefully prevent miscommunication. I could also use Hangouts with my colleagues when in-person meetings or phone calls are not possible. With summer upon us, I thing Hangouts might help teachers who are traveling for a majority of the summer connect with us, even if it’s just for a short period of time. Finally, I can see Google Hangouts becoming a fantastic tool for students as they work on group projects. While many of my students have phones and are willing to share their contact information with their peers, others do not have these luxuries. I do know that all of my students will have school-used Chromebooks next year and a school gmail account. Therefore, they can use Hangouts to communicate. This is much faster than email and the immediate responses are essential for effective group work. I love that Hangouts gives students the option to collaborate outside of the classroom.

When I first created my Twitter account back in high school, I was just searching for alternative to Facebook to keep myself entertained. I had no clue it could be a powerful tool for my future career. If anything, I was afraid it was going to be a detriment to my job search so I did my best to keep all of the posts clean and appropriate (for a high school student). Now, I use Twitter solely for professional reading.

Pros

Twitter can be very useful to educators trying to broaden their teaching horizons. Twitter can be used t0 easily share created resources, links to interesting education articles, and photos of activities in-action. The fact the Twitter limits a tweet to 280 characters (it used be 140 characters but Twitter increased that number recently) helps the reader quickly decide if they are interested in learning more. It does not feel like a chore because it is not required. Instead, one can read only the materials that interest them. Of course, one of the powerful tools within Twitter is the hashtag. Users can link their tweet to other similar tweets by using a hashtag. For example, I usually read #MTBoS which stands for Math Twitter Blog-o-Sphere. This hashtag was very useful when I first started teaching because I would find blogs run by math teachers. One in particular, Math=Love, became my lifeline. She shared ready-to-print activities to help me enhance my Algebra I course. By looking at just one hashtag, I could see all of the tweets by math teachers who were interested or involved in Twitter and/or blogging. Users can follow a hashtag on a specific topic to see what people are saying about it. The next pro of Twitter goes along with the hashtags because it relies on a hashtag to function. Twitter educators hold educational twitter chats at scheduled times. This way, the educators interested in the chat can follow or participate at the same time. They do not have to wait days to see a response or something new added to the conversation. Instead, the users involved are actively responding to tweets within that one-hour time period. To link all of the Tweets of course, users all use the same hashtag (Inservice Guest Blogger, 2017). Later this week I hope to participate in a general education chat that uses #edchat to link the tweets. Finally, Twitter can be used by students in the classroom. It is a public tool that students can use to share their own ideas and appropriately collaborate with peers both within the classroom and around the world.

Cons

While Twitter makes it easy for educators to quickly share ideas, one must be careful about the content they are sharing online. Teachers must be especially careful because we all know our students are little detectives who want to learn everything they can about you. As long as all of your content is appropriate, unpolitical, and education-focused, you should be fine. An Inservice Guest Blogger (2017) from ASCD’s Inservice Blog suggested you make a separate Twitter account if you are interested in following political or personal accounts or posting political or personal messages. Just as the limit to 280 characters can help a reader/lurker, it can limit the user who is posting. However, it cannot hurt to practice being concise with your wording. If you cannot fit your message into those 280 characters, the way to work around this limit is by linking ideas to a Google Document or an outside article. While Twitter is a great way to quickly share ideas, so many people have ideas and even individual people have a large number of Tweets. This means that great ideas can get buried over time. You might think about tweets as just a moment in time. Make sure you save those good ideas elsewhere instead of trying to scroll through pages of tweets later. One possible flaw of using Twitter as your PLN is the fact that users are not on at the same time. The discussions are meant to be asynchronous. Even though users may be notified when someone comments on their post, the response may come later. Educational twitter chats are one way to make synchronous conversations, but the times may not be convenient for everyone. Finally, teachers who use Twitter in the classroom may run into some problems. First, there is the likely possibility that students already have their own personal accounts with non-educational (or perhaps not appropriate) material. While some teachers welcome previous accounts, I would prefer to ask my students to use their school emails to create new, educational-only Twitter accounts. Similarly, as with other public forums, Twitter cannot be regulated by the teacher. If cyber-bullying occurs, the teacher may be able to catch it and provide consequences, but it will take days for Twitter to respond to the flagged tweet. Students may be exposed to negative comments or crude images posted by the public. Flagging a tweet as inappropriate will help, but the response will be delayed.

Twitter as Professional Growth

As mentioned above, Twitter can certainly be used for one’s Professional Growth as a teacher. I would even consider Twitter use a professional development tool, if used correctly. An educator could make an educational Twitter account, follow only educators that add value to their feeds, and check their feeds regularly. It is so easy to get good ideas from other educators. Teaching is not meant to be a solo job and we need to collaborative to be effective. There is no need to limit collaboration and idea sharing to one building. Use your colleagues from different buildings, districts, states, and even countries by following them on Twitter. Hashtags and educational twitter chats give teachers ways to connect their tweets to others’ thoughts about the topic. Finally, teacher can ask students to use the platform to share their ideas and relate the content to the “real” world.

References

Inservice Guest Blogger. (2017, July 11). Twitter and Your Professional Learning Network. Retrieved July 1, 2019, from http://inservice.ascd.org/twitter-and-your-professional-learning-network/

Even though Flickr is a photo sharing website for the public, it can be used for mathematical purposes. As pictured above, the topic of the images could be anything, including math. My students might use Flickr as a location for their portfolio pictures. They can photograph their own work and upload to Flickr. By simply sending me the link, I can view their pictures. Not only does Flickr allow my students to share their work with me, it allows them to share their work with anyone. This helps broaden their audience and therefore encourage them to create complete, polished pieces of work.

In addition to student uploads, the wide range of photos published on Flickr can be useful. My students will also be responsible for publishing some of their mathematical reasoning in public forms, such as blog posts. Again, a public audience helps both readers and students alike. While many blog posts can be text only, some posts may benefit from some images. Flickr would be a fantastic resources to add media to their posts. Flickr would be the tool of choice because it makes the copyright information very clear and you can search by Creative Commons licenses. This encourages students to practice academic honesty and understand that they are responsible for following the Creative Commons licenses. My sixth grade students have not yet mastered the citation process and I may encourage them to search within the Public Domain section of Flickr. Fortunately, it is possible to search by license as one of the search options. Another search option ideal for the classroom is SafeSearch. I like that SafeSearch is on by default. Overall, Flickr is student friendly and can help my students enhance their work in a variety of ways.

References

Verch, M. (2018, June 21). Taschenrechner, Bleistift und Radiergummi. Mathematik-Hausaufgaben. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/149561324@N03/42448090704/in/photolist-27EZyuQ-cdVqHd-qvf8SF-ceL4wu-cfKzLE-bXnZvg-bXnYKB-bV2z6M-coiv17-ccoNwL-Curn1R-coiuDf-egwpCD-cfKxS5-qvf8Sv-WQECyY-9f8aVo-8wyUHM-5qkLpx-7CGoEU-8MF4cJ-9nmcX8-6UKAEw-deht9N-bWf3xg-ctjbDE-cthZ23-ceK96b-cohZ7q-dehoXQ-csbbV3-dcpHpi-cuEzub-cohZdb-ctj8e5-ogFFKn-jUgSSZ-cdcXtY-cdcTjj-cthT1W-dehqiu-cee8cy-cuDNz3-dKrc4E-b97zFz-bV2yaM-bVQDmi-cdcWBb-cthRQj-cti4WA

Verch, M. (2019). Taschenrechner, Bleistift und Radiergummi. Mathematik-Hausaufgaben. Retrieved June 19, 2019, from https://foto.wuestenigel.com/taschenrechner-bleistift-und-radiergummi-mathematik-hausaufgaben/

The ability to collaborate with colleagues and other people in your educational network is becoming an essential teacher skill. This is particularly true in middle school. Advocating for student needs is so important and we hold team meetings to discuss both students and middle school families. I find myself learning from my coworkers during our common planning time. Likewise, high quality teaching is nearly impossible to do alone. In addition to coworkers, teachers can and should seek educators on social media and use teaching resources published online. I follow educational leaders on Twitter and Facebook and I use Open Up Resources daily for research-based math lessons. Just as the world is changing, education must adapt and it would be ineffective to expect each individual to make time-consuming adaptations along the way. By working together and sharing our knowledge, we are better able to devote time to the more important, student-specific tasks such as building relationships, tracking academic progress, and making lessons work for your students and classes.

Teachers are not the only people in the teaching and learning model responsible for collaboration. Students are expected to graduate with basic communication skills. For these reasons, they are placed in groups and asked to complete tasks together. They are required to discuss academics with one another and use online collaborative tools with their peers. As a result, the students who participate in these activities will be better prepared for collaborating with colleagues in their future working environment. Similar to education, very few significant achievements are possible alone. Students benefit from teachers’ collaboration just as they benefit from collaboration with teachers and peers.

Early in the year, I ask students to participate in some ice breakers and get-to-know-you activities. I typically play Math Bingo as a first activity. I ask students to walk around to music and when the music stops, find the person closest to see if they can sign something on the math bingo sheet. The bingo sheet has some facts that include numbers. For example, “I have an even number of siblings (not including me).” If the fact is true for that students’ partner, they can sign the box. Of course, the first person to get bingo (five in a row) wins a prize. This lesson can be adapted to make use of social bookmarking.

I chose to adapt this lesson plan because I want to know more about my students that the facts I anticipate. The math bingo shares some information about my students, but not enough. If I ask students to use Pinterest to share facts about them, I will learn much more about them. I will still keep the bingo aspect of the game with some anticipated facts to give the ice breaker a game-like feel. However, this time the facts will be about their pins.

Please find my revised lesson plan by viewing the link.

An advantage of using Pinterest to gather information about students is the fact that there is no limit on the types of interests students will be able to share with me. They can easily search a topic and find a pin to share. However, a disadvantage is that this means students might find/be exposed to inappropriate content. I will have to make Pinterest available to my students on the network. Hopefully, by carefully monitoring students screens via ChromeManagement, I should be able to prevent or catch any inappropriate pins. The lesson also introduces the students to Pinterest as a way to manage resources both for my class and for life. Pinterest provides suggestions and students should not have trouble finding things that interest them. With Pinterest, I can use the board to review student interests at a later date when I am thinking about ways to engage my students. I might even be able to mention some of these hobbies or interests in parent-teacher conferences as a way to start the conversation.

RSS can enhance both my professional learning and my students’ learning. As a professional, I am a lifelong learner. I can always improve my craft and stay up to date on the latest trends and research. I can use my personal RSS feed on The Old Reader to ask my favorite education blogs to send information my way as it is available. This is a time-saving alternative to going to each blog and checking to see if they are new blog posts. I could create a resource page for my students with an RSS feed. As a math educator, I don’t expect to use this quite as often as other educators might for day-to-day resources. I do not anticipate making a RSS feed for math videos because students usually want to search for one specific type of math problem or practice set as they study for an upcoming test or work through homework problems. However, I could certainly create RSS feed for research-based extension projects. Instead of asking students go to each site I suggest, they can see all the updates in one place. Finally, I could ask my parents to subscribe to my updates with their own RSS feeds to keep them updated on the weekly happenings in the classroom.

I subscribed to several RSS feeds with the creation of my account on the Old Reader. First, I followed Education Week: Mathematics because mathematics education ideas are always useful to me. Education week posts tech tools that add to the math classroom and student projects that bring the curriculum to life. Next, I followed Edutopia. Similarly, they post education tips and tools useful across multiple disciplines. They also make research-based suggestions to challenge our thoughts about teaching. For example, a recent article asks us to wonder if letter grade will/should survive. It’s an important part of my role as a dynamic teacher to keep an open mind and regularly consider new yet valid methods. To keep myself informed about new technology, I followed Free Technology for Teachers. I love free tools because they can be integrated immediately without asking for payment from the district. The blog features apps, websites, AR/VR tech, and other ways I can make better use of the Chromebooks, VR googles, and future devices available to my students. The fact that the tools are free allow me to easily try something new without committing anything other than time to the exploration process. I followed Classroom Ideas-WeAre Teachers because it is recommended as a top classroom RSS feed (Feedspot, 2019). I subscribed to Mindshift because the most recent post captured my attention. Titled “Getting Physical: How the Flagway Game Sparks Learning and Love of Math”, I had to learn more about the game. According to Kara Newhouse, “Flagway is a game that involves factoring numbers and categorizing them based on the Möbius function. Players use their solutions to navigate a color-coded course and place flags on the correct spot. Teams try to solve as many problems as possible in each round to score the most points” (Newhouse, 2019). I am a big fan of adding physical activity to my lessons and the focus on math enticed me even more. Mindshift posts about a plethora of education topics include cultural trends, technology, education research, and education policy. I want to become a well-rounded educator and Mindshift can help me stay up to date on these different education topics.

References

Feedspot. (2019, January 23). Top Classroom RSS Feeds. Retrieved June 12, 2019, from https://blog.feedspot.com/classroom_rss_feeds/

Newhouse, K. (2019, June 11). Getting Physical: How the Flagway Game Sparks Learning and Love of Math. Retrieved June 12, 2019, from https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/53767/getting-physical-how-the-flagway-game-sparks-learning-and-love-of-math?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed: kqed/nHAK (MindShift)&utm_content=FeedBurner

Farber argues that quests give students voice and choice in the classroom and voice and choice is an important part of a healthy classroom. The Buck Institute for Education (2019) agree, calling it the gold standard for a project-based learning unit. Likewise, the Center for Self-Determination Theory supports student choice as it is a key aspect of the first of the three drivers of self-determination: autonomy (the perception of being in control), competence (feeling capable to achieve), and relatedness (social belongingness) (Center for Self-Determination, 2019). Clearly it aligns with autonomy because students are in control of their decisions. Quests present learning as a series of personalized, differentiated learning pathways. Students begin with limited choices and are offered more options as the progress in-game. In my math class, I may start a quest with a lesson on the major facts or concepts. Then, the next choices will give students the opportunity to apply their newly acquired knowledge. The next layer of quest options will give students a chance to master the concepts by exploring their real-world contexts. One of the tools and platforms recommended for educational quests is Classcraft. Their quests feature colorful maps where teachers can drag and drop pins/assignments. Students can navigate themselves to these pins with in-game arrows. Quest gamify learning without encouraging any of the extrinsic like point-based leaderboards and other forms of artificial competition. According to Farber, many students will actually complete more the minimum number of quests for fun and high-flyers will explore side quests (Farber 2019).

References

Buck Institute for Education. (2019). Gold Standard PBL: Student Voice & Choice | MyPBLWorks. Retrieved June 7, 2019, from https://my.pblworks.org/resource/blog/gold_standard_pbl_student_voice_choice

Center for Self-Determination Theory. (2019). Theory. Retrieved June 7, 2019, from http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/theory/

Farber, M. (2018, January 16). Using Quests in Project-Based Learning. Retrieved June 7, 2019, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/using-quests-project-based-learning

In the book Interactivity, Game Creation, Design, Learning, and Innovation, Stamatios Papadakis and Michail Kalogiannakis (2017) explore the effects of Classcraft on student performance and engagement. While the increase in student performance was not statistically significant, the improvements in student engagement were significant. Papadakis and Kalogiannakis referenced Bond who defines gamification as the application of game elements to non-game contexts (Bond, 2015). A random selection of 30 high school students were randomly assigned to two groups. One group learned computer programming with Classcraft and the control group learned programming from traditional teaching methods. The teacher collected data about the accuracy and complexity of student codes, final exam scores, and a questionnaire about students’ attitudes towards programming. The accuracy and complexity of student codes in the Classcraft group were higher, but not enough to be statistically significant. The mea for the first group was 66.60 with a 8.84 standard deviation. The control group earned a mean score of 64.87 and a standard deviation of 9.96. The final online exam gleaned similar results. The experimental group had a mean score of 74.60 and a 7.21 standard deviation. The control group had a 73.47 average score with a 8.11 standard deviation. Again, the increases were not statistically significant. Finally, the questionnaire showed that there was a major difference between the two groups. The instructor calculated a number to represent student attitudes towards programming. The Classcraft group reported an average positive attitude towards programming of 92.27% with a 2.09 standard deviation. Meanwhile, the control group responded with 72.87% positive attitudes and a 9.43 standard deviation (Papadakis & Kalogiannakis, 2017).

References

Bond, L.: Mathimagicians Quest: Applying Game Design Concepts to Education to Increase School Engagement for Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disabilities (Doctoral dissertation). University of Washington (2015)

Papadakis, S., & Kalogiannakis, M. (2017). Using gamification for supporting an introductory programming course. the case of classcraft in a secondary education classroom. In Interactivity, Game Creation, Design, Learning, and Innovation(pp. 366-375). Springer, Cham.

Sanchez, Young, and Jouneau-Sion (2017) published an article in the journal Education and Information Technologies about Classcraft, an educational role-playing game. The article references existing research in the literature review section. Challco, Moreira, Bittencourt, Mizoguchi, and Isotani (2015) recommend gamificiation to improve student motivation to participate in collaborative learning. Students will be driven to stay on-task. Garris, Ahlers, and Driskell (2002) explain, “Games evoke a sense of personal control when users are allowed to select strategies, manage the direction of activity, and make decisions that directly affect outcomes, even if actions are not instructionally relevant.” This support the classroom management argument for Classcraft as students are invested in both academic efforts and appropriate behavioral decision making. Student interest is also tightly connected to student investment. Of course, engaged students are behaved students. Randel, Morris, Wetzel, and Whitehill (1992) concluded that games are consistently perceived as more interesting than traditional instruction. For example, Cohen (1969) found that 87% of students tested reported greater interest for educational games than for classroom approaches (Garris, Ahlers, & Driskell, 2002).

Sanchez, Young, and Jouneau-Sion did more than review the literature. They conducted two experiments, one in France and one in Quebec, and used data from an online survey made available to teachers on the Classcraft platform. They argue that Classcraft is more than typical gamificiation where educational goals are achieved by adding game-like elements to a task. The Classcraft classroom management tools are more effective because Classcraft allows students to create reflexive versions of themselves in a world where the nature and meaning of interactions are modified from their “real” world (Sanchez, Young, and Jouneau-Sion, 2017).

References

Challco, G. C., Moreira, D. A., Bittencourt, I. I., Mizoguchi, R., & Isotani, S. (2015). Personalization of gamification in collaborative learning contexts using ontologies. IEEE Latin America Transactions, 13(6), 1995-2002.

Cohen, K. C. (1969). The effects of two simulation games on the opinions and attitudes of selected sixth, seventh, and eight grade students. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, Center for the Study of Social Organization of Schools. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED031766)

Garris, R., Ahlers, R., & Driskell, J. E. (2002). Games, motivation, and learning: a research and practice model. Simulation & Gaming, 33(4), 441–467.

Randel, J., Morris, B., Wetzel, C., & Whitehill, B. (1992). The effectiveness of games for educational purposes: A review of recent research. Simulation & Gaming, 23, 261-276.

Sanchez, E., Young, S., & Jouneau-Sion, C. (2017). Classcraft: from gamification to ludicization of classroom management. Education and Information Technologies, 22(2), 497-513.