I was made aware of EdPuzzle by a colleague at AHS, but it kept cropping up on various blogs and PLNs that I subscribe to (most notably here). I decided to give it a try and played around with it for a while, and looked at some of the assignments and videos created by my colleagues at AHS and by others from around the globe. It allows a wide variety of different formatting and most importantly offers support for mathematical text input (which is not as common as it should be!).
EdPuzzle allows for an easily flipped classroom. This is the main usage of the app, and although I see numerous other ways to apply it in the classroom setting, this is how I plan on applying it for the majority of my usages. The beauty of this app is that it allows a teacher to put the initial learning exercises in a student’s hands and create accountability through quizzes, questions, and comments timed directly with pertinent information in the video. This is great because it allows me to preteach concepts before class but still have a good idea of how students are tackling the information on their own, to see how I should pace my lesson. Additionally, many of my homework assignments are centered around creating a question in my students’ minds, that we then answer in class. EdPuzzle allows me a more streamlined and fluid way to do this. It would be good to note that in order to effectively use EdPuzzle I had to also learn how to use a screen capture app, for which I chose Screencastify. It is effective, simple, and speedy! The only hurdle I really need to tackle now in order to feel very comfortable creating good ed-videos is how to draw effectively on my computer screen because a mouse is essentially worthless as a writing implement. I may end up using a camera and filming myself at a whiteboard, or better yet, using a doc-cam and filming myself working on worksheets… This tech tool is powerful, since it allows learning and data collection to occur without my presence, thereby allowing me to assign effective and powerful homework assignments. Commonsense points out that passive video watching usually only requires lower-level thinking. The interactive videos provided by EdPuzzle allow for much more engagement and “depth of learning, especially if teachers take advantage of the options to add supplemental resources and links.” There are some clumsinesses in the implementation of this tool, but it does allow for built math notation, and it integrates seamlessly with Google Classroom, my chosen platform for homework, classwork, and assignments. My biggest gripes (which seem to be shared by the general community) are that it is difficult to edit videos, I cannot record videos directly in EdPuzzle, and that the question/submission options are a little limited. Nonetheless, a really powerful tool that I am excited to implement in my classroom. I think this tool is a great step towards increased usage of technology in the classroom. It allows me to model the use of technology in the classroom for the presentation of information, and I hope at some point in the future to get my students to use this to present and submit their understanding of the concepts in class. This platform also allows me to responsibly and effectively use material created by educators and leaders from all over the world. This is a great way to demonstrate digital citizenship and collaboration for my students, as well as model what I consider to be high-quality products, and what we should all consider to be a refined product. I do not see this tool totally revolutionizing my teaching of math, or my students’ access to it. But it does offer a new way to alter my classroom, more effectively assign homework, and get students working in the 21st century.
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I really enjoyed creating these “POWs” or “Problems of the Week” for my students. The questions are fun, engaging, contain real mathematics, and force students to step outside the standard math paradigm. Furthermore, reading their work is interesting and rewarding and gives me a really good look at how they are thinking about mathematics. These POWs are considered summative assessments because they require students to apply their knowledge of the content area, but also to reflect on how they are applying their knowledge, and more importantly, to discuss their thinking and any mathematical abilities and techniques that they had to apply to come to solutions. Therefore, I think that these POWs are an excellent way to assess not just math content knowledge in my students, but a lot of the skills that surround being a successful mathematician and student. Now, actually getting my students to apply themselves in these assignments (I have done three this year with my core math classes, and am about to introduce the fifth to my Pre-Calculus students) has been difficult. It is so hard to get students to think outside the box in the math classroom, where they have all been trained to answer question, get grade, that the first attempt at the POWs was rough. Many students did not understand the requirements (even though they were discussed at length in class), and so only attempted to answer the mathematical question, and ignored the other requirements of the assignment. Most of these students failed the first assignment. However, they have all understood by now that although the math is rigorous, and the solution important to arrive at, that is only half the picture. The other main piece of the assessment is analyzing how students are able to reflect on their own problem-solving process. At the end of the day, I am a math teacher, but what I am actually teaching my students to do is problem-solve, collaborate, and persevere. Therefore, in spite of the frustrations of getting my students to step outside the standard math-class paradigm, I think this form of summative assessment is really successful in its purpose: analyzing students’ abilities to problem-solve. Moving forward, I am excited to continue to use POWs with my students, to assess knowledge from the unit, and to assess the other, less tangible skills of perseverance, collaboration, and problem-solving. However, I started this year off with a very amorphous, poorly structured POW, and in future years I would not do so. I think I did not scaffold this type of thinking as well as I had hoped with my students this year. Next year I would start with easy and obviously relevant problems in order to help students see the importance of the tangential mathematician’s skills. In addition to this, I would start off my year with more practice for my students in group work and collaboration, and simple puzzling and meta-cognition in order to scaffold them up for greater success at these difficult, self-analytical summative assessments. The IRB process has not been terrible for me, and it has helped me to solidify my research methods, and thereby my research question and some of my sub-themes. However, there was a lot that was confusing at first, and it was thanks to some long conversations with my advisor Brian Geisinger that I now feel good about the process, even though there are still some outstanding questions I need answered.
The biggest frustration I have faced in the IRB process is in coming to grips with the fact that I need to go through an institutional review in the first place. I am conducting research for a project for AHS anyways, that I am doubling down on for my capstone. It works out very well for me. The depth and complexity of my capstone is greater than what I am doing for AHS. However, I am doing this research anyway, without a review by a board other than my colleagues. Since it is more-or-less action research and is being conducted in my classroom, I have a hard time answering some of the questions geared towards insuring that the well-being of my students is maintained. Nothing about my teaching practice is changing to allow for my research to take place since I am conducting research on the efficacy of my practices, and I would never cause harm to my students. Beyond that beautiful frisson that leads to intellectual stimulation and growth, I do not see why I need to defend my research as an extension of my teaching practice. Moving forward, I plan on submitting an expedited IRB proposal. I was hoping to get away with exempt, but I decided I really valued student feedback on their own growth, and I am having them reflect and self-assess anyways, so I might as well use this valuable data in my Capstone Project. My biggest issue is that the IRB process has convinced me to limit my data collection tools and methods simply to expedite the process… In the long run, I will probably be glad about this as it simply means less work for me. Yet, it feels like I am selling out on my research and methods in order to jump through some hoops and tick off boxes on a bureaucratic piece of red tape. I still have not resolved this feeling, and I still have not submitted my final IRB proposal. These things may be related... For a lot of my students, accessing the mathematics is difficult, and they have different ways to do so. I offer all of my assignments in digital and paper form, I go over the assignments with the students in multiple different ways, modeling, asking, showing, working with them individually and as groups, using good visual representations of the ideas, etc. However, I have several students for whom even this is insufficient differentiation. Several of these students need fidget toys, or they make their own, or they are HUGE distracting forces in my classroom (overwhelming at times).
For several of these students, I have found good communication to be the answer. They are capable of focusing for a minute, so if I need them to pay attention to something before they go off again, I will set up my lesson to let them mess around before I pull them back in and release. This has been very successful. However, the time they are not focusing is still an issue, as they tend to distract other students as well. My solution to this was math puzzles. I have a small collection of math toys, puzzles, and small individual games. I got more. Then I gave some of these games out to students who I knew would benefit from the mental activity and for whom the distraction would prevent them from BEING distractions to the class. The issue is that the puzzles themselves became a huge distraction. Students were getting up and walking across the class to play with these things instead of doing their work. The solution had become the problem! For the students who these toys were originally meant to help, they were great! For everybody else they became a distraction. The first time this happened I took them all away and put them back in my drawer of math games. But then the original distractions popped up. When I took them back out, all the students became distracted! I finally tried to use these games as a reward. Most students would not ask for them if they were not visible and easily available. The ones who did, I could use the puzzles as a sort of carrot, and it worked well. However, I was still having problems with the students who would otherwise be working hard being distracted by the students who needed these things to fidget with in order to be productive. I have still not found a good, equitable solution for this. Do I sacrifice my strong students focus for more focus from the students who really need it? This seems like a good way to narrow the gap, but it does not feel like the RIGHT way to do so. In the end, I think I am going to have an explicit conversation with the students with whom it is an issue, and not make a bigger scene out of it. I think that there is a healthy enough conversation between my students and I that I can be straightforward about my expectations and their abilities and needs. This is one of the benefits of having a healthy community. I will see how this goes this coming week! Math toys rule! I really enjoy Formative Assessment! It feels so much more genuine than “Summative Assessments”, since the feedback is immediate, actionable, and (ideally) involves student input. My most recent foray into Formative Assessment involved having students not only grade each other's POW (Problem of the Week) Writeups but also critique and comment on them directly. I had them ignore the Rubrics for their commenting sessions since I did not want them to align their comments with the rubrics, but instead give genuine feedback and responses based on what they were seeing, not on what I wanted to see. Then they graded each other. After this I had students go through the comments made on their POWs, and make their own corrections and comments. Finally, I had the students give each other a grade based on the rubric, and grade themselves. The next piece of this Formative Assessment is my own grading of their work, which includes comments, suggestions, corrections, etc. The final piece, which we will be working on next week is for students to take these comments and suggestions and rework and refine their POWs. I am excited to see how this all plays out!
The biggest difficulty in the implementation of this assessment lay in the fact that some students simply did not complete their POWs, or put in such little care that it was all but impossible to assess their work reasonably. It is incredibly frustrating when students do not do their work, especially when that work is required to participate in class. It is a self compounding problem, that the students who do the work get the best feedback, and are therefore able to make the best revisions. I do not have a good solution for this. However, it is somewhat self-regulating, since the students who cannot participate because they did not do the work get to read others work and see what is good or bad and become the judges themselves. This makes the lack of participation fairly obvious, and in some ways allows students who have done the work to not get punished by doing more work, but rather forces the students who did not do the work to participate and engage. I think moving forward I will continue to use this self/peer critique/assessment process. I like it a lot, and the feedback is quick and easy and does not add significantly to my workload, but enables students to try and understand better what is expected of them and act on that knowledge. However, I need to find a good way to get all students to turn in their work on time so that this process works more fully for all students, and does not continue to widen the gap between the “high achievers” and the “low motivation” students. Perhaps I could be framing the submission differently, but without taking away the seriousness of the need for students to come to class with a submission. “You will be submitting a final DRAFT of this assignment, but we will critique and comment on these in class, and you will have an opportunity to act on those critiques and comments in order to raise your grade on the assignment.” I do not like using grades as a motivator, however… How else can I inspire some of my students to participate besides trying to get them to understand the importance of problem-solving skills, explaining skills, etc. in the real world. Perhaps I can have them explain the importance themselves, and give them FORMATIVE FEEDBACK on their thoughts from their peers, themselves, and myself! BOOM! GeoGebra Assignment - function concepts quiz - Unit 1
^LINK I have a lot of different tech tools that I am interested in. My problem right now is that many of them seem like they are simply a “gamification” of the genuine mathematics (a term I picked up from the mindresearch.org blog), as opposed to a true revolution of the paradigm. Many of these tools are simply replacing numbers on a worksheet with numbers on a screen, or adding a video to a word problem… Towards that end, I have struggled to really narrow down my tech tool for this assignment. Here is my shortlist: Desmos: https://www.desmos.com/calculator Although it is simple graphing software, there are a host of possibilities contained within the programming that allows graphing to truly be an enlightening experience and help students more fully grasp the implications of the concepts they are working with.
PolyUp: https://www.polyup.com/machines/grades-9-to-12 This is a really cool online application (or on iOS) that gives students a very nice tactile exploration of everything from simple operations all the way up to infinite repeating series and introductions to boolean programming and a really nice way to introduce formal logic. Studio Code: https://studio.code.org/s/express-2019 I have been digging through this website for a while now and am finding a huge amount of programming and logic options for lessons (like two years' worth of lessons). I do not see an immediate application of this, but I am interested in developing a programming module/course at AHS and this could be a great intro, with simply block-based programming and logic operation as a way to develop student comfort. Furthermore, it is immensely satisfying and students can see the results of their programming immediately. Study Stack: https://www.studystack.com This is a flashcard app available both online and on a smartphone, which is hugely appealing for me, as not all of my students have appropriate computers or WiFi at home, but they almost all have smartphones and access to wireless. Geogebra: https://www.geogebra.org/graphing This compilation of graphing and computing software is IMPRESSIVE. So much functionality, but a much higher level of knowledge is required to access it and make use of all of its functionality. There are a lot of lessons created by teachers as well, similar to what we see in Desmos, but again, at a much higher level due to the complexity offered by the software. Advantages over Desmos:
PLN where you found your tech tool to evaluate https://blog.mindresearch.org Name of tech tool that you selected and brief description GeoGebra Free software for creating mathematical constructions: functions, models, geometric arrangements. You can adjust parameters live or set up replaying loops to foster a deep understanding of how different variables can affect graphs and shapes. It is online, downloadable, and has iOS offerings including an enhanced reality mode for 3-D graphing which is immensely powerful. GeoGebra offers a lot of tools for students and teachers to create math explorations. There is also a large pool of existing explorations, which is truly vast and constantly growing. These include everything from the high school Common Core curriculum and are both interactive and static. GeoGebra is best used in the secondary setting, although, due to the complexity available in the programming, it would be best introduced early so that students can become familiar with it over their whole time as students. That way it can be fully utilized with minimal fuss getting students up to speed. To create effective lessons requires a high degree of familiarity with the tools available. Summary of how the literature supports the implementation of this tool (200-300 words) GeoGebra is widely lauded, by many math educators and education bloggers as the most easily accessible, yet advanced software of its kind. It is widely preferred over Desmos for complex tasks and offers more range of teachable opportunities and nuance in its application. SAMR Model GeoGebra allows for a full redefinition of the math curriculum when used creatively. The vast array of tools offered in the app could let students program functions and visuals, create their own lessons and explore functions and geometry in a manipulative manner not offered prior to the availability of advanced graphing software like this. The 3-D enhanced reality mode creates a means for data manipulation that I would have only dreamed of in college. At the very least, this app allows for easy and simple augmentation and modification through the simple manipulative nature of graphing. TPACK This software falls more in the technological content area than the other areas, although it could be argued that as soon as it is applied to the curriculum it becomes an excellent way to integrate all three areas. Students need to be savvy with the technology, it needs to be appropriately introduced (through one of the MANY available tutorials or lessons, or one created specifically for the task), and obviously promotes understanding of the mathematical concepts through direct visualization and manipulation. The app is of course specifically bent towards geometry and graphing but can be used for a wide variety of applications up to and including programming and logic. ISTE Standards Innovative Designer - 4b prototyping; 4d tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance; Computational Thinker - 5a problem definitions for technology-assisted methods; 5b data analysis; 5c develop descriptive models; Creative Communicator - 6a appropriate digital tools for communication; 6c complex ideas through digital representations; Global Collaborator - 7c constructive contribution to project teams Sources: https://www.quora.com/Which-one-is-better-Desmos-or-GeoGebra https://www.commonsense.org/education/website/geogebra https://www.geogebra.org/materials https://conference.iste.org/2018/program/search/detail_session.php?id=110746779 http://faculty.wiu.edu/JR-Olsen/wiu/miniconf/Desmos-and-Geogebra.pdf https://prezi.com/mtphd5r-fkqs/geogebra-vs-desmos/ The whole research proposal process is a little daunting. I understand that is in place for good reasons, to protect students and create a support network for researchers while also creating accountability. However, it feels that, like many things in education in America, the bureaucracy gets in the way of promoting good educational practices, and teachers get bogged down in the mire of red tape instead of using student feedback and action research to promote and further excellent teaching practice.
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Julian SpringerMath Department - Animas High School Archives
December 2019
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