The Read Report Lives (Part 2)

Continuing on in trying to catch up and be a better blogger, here are a few more articles from my Feedly and my thoughts on them.

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Back in April 2016, Google's Education Blog talked about 4 Ways to Use Polling in Google Classroom.  If you use the Question function on Google Classroom (GC), and choose multiple choice instead of short answer, you can create a way to poll your students without creating a Google Form.  I had forgotten about this since I don't tend to use the question function and instead use Verso for online discussions.  But, I've already set one up for next week to help my 11th graders, who are doing a very big research paper, self-monitor their progress.  The blog also mentioned it's a good way to get student feedback, for exit tickets, and to guide student discussions.


At the end of the same mother, Sylvia Duckworth from EdTechTeam, talked about taking her knowledge of (what was then) GAFE for granted and what she did to make sure to pass the Google Level 2 exam.  She offered 3 Tips to Rock the Google Level 2 EDU Certification.  I'm sure I kept this because it was my plan over the summer to get my Level 2 Certification, but that didn't pan out.  Then my district offered Level 1 Certification courses, but I already had mine and so I asked if Level 2 would be offered.  They said it would be, and it was, but the class in December got cancelled.  It is now in May.  I've gone and checked out some of the training modules, but I haven't had the time to really look at them or the resources our Program Specialist put together.  Maybe I can get some of that done during Spring Break in April (Ha. Then I would have come full circle).  One thing I have done when looking at the modules is I go straight to the Review Quizzes and see what I don't actually know and then study that instead of reading over information that I've already figure out on my own in my usage of the G Suite products.



In May, Jennifer Gonzlez at the Cult of Pedagogy posted (and podcasted) about ways to make better use of Twitter.  She talks about finding your tribe, having conversations, sharing, participating in Twitter chats (mine is #caedchat - though I need to get more involved with it), do research, and communicate with students and parents.  Now, I have my personal twitter, which I use for the first 5 things Jennifer mentions, but I created a school twitter for my students/parents.  I don't get much traction out of the latter, but then again, most of the kids seemed to have moved to SnapChat.

In that same month, Valencia Clay over at Edutopia posted about Intrinsic Motivation vs. Standardized Tests. I think, at the time, I was interested because I had been working on my action research project with my two partners, and a large part of it involved extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.  She'd used a lot from the work of Daniel Pink and his book, Drive (which you should read), but one thing in her article really caught my attention.  One of the questions she says we should have students explore is "How will achieving well on this exam impact me a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now?"  Now, I'm admittedly biased against any high-stakes standardized testing and think there is too much of it.  I also think there is too much no-little-stakes standardized testing (my 10th graders take 5-6 a year). But, some of these standardized tests can impact a student.  Our 11th-grade students take the SBAC and have the EAP questions attached to it.  That can impact them because - depending on how well they do on the mixture of questions (SBAC and EAP) - it determines whether or not they need to take ERWC or any remedial English or Math courses in college (it essentially replaces placement tests).

I think that's a good plethora for now.  Next time, we'll cover the month of June and maybe more.

Blending Doctopus and Goobric with Google Classroom

Not a very inventive title, but an accurate one.

So, I just graded my first set of research papers using Doctopus so I can use the Goobric grading rubric.  It was....pretty dang awesome.  It made grading the essays a lot easier and less irritating than I remember them being in the past. 

What Doctopus is is a free way to use your Google Drive via sheets to handle Google Document assignments from your students.  Here is a quick video on what Doctopus is:

I had never looked into Doctopus before since I use Google Classroom, but the prospect of being able to use Goobric to grade some projects intrigued me, especially for the 11th grade research essay.  This essay took up a month of instruction and is worth a lot of points for the students.  Here is a video about using Goobric that includes some direction.

I did a little research to find out about Doctopus and Goobric (The two go hand-in-hand).  I was particularly looking for ways to incorporate it with Classroom and found some blog posts.  Here are two good ones I found:  one from Richard Bryne and one from Jennie Magiera.  There I found some very useful "How To" videos.

Now, I'm not sure how often I'll be able to use Goobric for grading because it's department policy to use the district's 6-point grading rubric for essays, which is holistic.  Goobric is not really set up for holistic grading, but this was definitely worth sharing.

Project and Padlet Pensiveness

Forgive the title but I love me some alliteration.

My 10th grade Honors students are about to embark on a reading of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club.  Before they read, I assigned a research project.  A small one.  I found the idea online last year and adapted it for my own needs.  Here is a copy of the handout.

The students will choose a topic in pairs or groups to research and create a presentation that incorporates an online tool to share with the class so that everyone gets a little background on Chinese culture before the book.  The students do the presentation together but write their own paper.

Theoretically, the presentations should have only taken a day, but today is day two and we still have some for tomorrow.  In my opinion, these are the possible reasons for the delay:

• Students in my second group were not ready yesterday and only about 3 groups went.  The groups that went today cannot get an A on the presentation due to the fact that they weren't ready yesterday.
• Students didn't have their online tools ready to go.  It ate up a lot of time to log into accounts and bring presentations up.  Next time, I'm going to insist that students provide me a link that I can click on in the assignment on Classroom.
• I insisted that students give feedback on a Padlet wall (more on that below) and that took up some time between each presentation.

Some students got very creative (and one group brought in food) in some of their presentations.  Those that created videos seemed to do the best in engaging the class.  Some students didn't pay attention to the fact that I wanted more than for them to just stand up there and go through their Google Slides (sigh).

In my own graduate work, I was instructed to create or adapt a project that had students collaborating via technology somehow.  I chose to use the research project to fulfill this assignment.  I decided to use Padlet and create a wall for students to leave notes to each group giving their feedback. 

Here is Period 4's.  

I had the wall set to free form at first and that was just a fuster cluck of wading through the notes.  I switched it to grid view and immediately sighed with relief.  As did the students when they saw it the next day (some actually thought I went through and spent the time hand organizing it at first).  I think I'll set it that way automatically next time.

Ultimately, I like Padlet so far, and I think it's a good way to have students give feedback and be mindful of what they are saying because other people can see it.

Have you used Padlet?  Something better?  Let me know your thoughts and suggestions.

Feeling like a Failure

Only my second post and it's already got the word 'failure' in the title.

Today is one of those days I feel like a failure as a teacher.  My three 11th grade classes took a test on Rhetorical Devices today.  Obviously, they didn't do too well, so that means that I didn't do too well. So, together: We suck.

I don't know if it's truly my fault they did poorly or if it's actually the fault of the test because I won't have other teachers to compare myself to until next week.  Ultimately, it doesn't matter because I feel I should have better prepared them regardless.

I've been questioning myself all day.  Should I have stood up and done a PowerPoint with the rhetorical devices on it and had the students take notes, or fill in a skeleton guide like many of the other teachers?  Or, was the fact that I put together the slides and titled them with the names of the different rhetorical devices and had the students find the definitions and examples to place on it the right way to go?

So the next step is to wonder.  Is it me as a teacher in general, or does this transition into blended-learning and inquiry-based/guided-question style of teaching the culprit?  Maybe it's a combination.

I've set up a form for the students to take a survey, so I can get some feedback from them.  I think I need to evaluate what and when I should allow students to discover answers on their own and through their own searching and when to get up and be a 'sage on the stage'.  Maybe we jumped off into the deep end when we should have used the steps in the shallows.

Trying to make this shift and beginning my Master's in Educational Technology is both a blessing and a curse as I am learning about things that definitely help in this transition, but I feel very overwhelmed and like I'm leaving friends and family behind.