Extreme Social Studies

This Time, It's Personal It's been a while since I've posted here. What's written below is part of a practicum with the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Technology. We are conducting Learning Labs to explore what personalization means and looks like in several Vermont schools. Below are my thoughts on some of the nitty-gritty details of personalized learning. What is personalization? Today, everything is personalized. Want a phone that will play "Call Me Maybe" every time your significant other calls? No problem. Want a hat decorated with rhinestones and a cat doing a backflip? Sure. Want to learn about anything, anytime, anywhere? You can do that, too. With the advent of the Internet and digital media, it has become easier than ever to personalize our lives. Why not personalize our education as well? Right now, as I have mentioned, we really can learn anything at anytime, anywhere. So, personalization in education to me means harnessing that ability in ...

The final products of the Vermont IDU. They really came out great. After doing this project for 5 years, I may venture to say this is the best I have ever seen them. Now comes the hard part--the grading. The team had decided to give students individual assignment scores for their project, reported in the gradebook individually. Originally we thought to just lump the project scores into the averages of the transferable skills, but in the end it just didn't feel right to do that. Their project scores will still influence their transferable skill scores of Self Direction and Clear and Effective Communication, but they will also have their own scores out of 20. This is the rubric we used to score individual projects. I downloaded a pdf version into my trusty Notability app and went to grading each project. When I was done grading one project, I emailed the pdf to the student, cleared the page, and started on the next one. I was able to get through my "cas...

This year we tried something new. It was a little daunting, considering this unit has been crafted and developed for well over a decade. But, thanks to the amazing people over at the Tarrant Institute and the ever-so-talented Lori Lisai , Lamoille Union Middle School got to test-drive the enterprise version of Schoology. With this version came the Mastery Tracker. Our goal was simple, figure out a way to track proficiencies using Schoology's mastery tracker and report out those scores. Check out the video below where I try to lay out how we managed it. Many thanks to Sam Nelson and Chittenden South Supervisory Union for the inspiration for our scales and targets!

Team Extreme: The Vermont IDU Our journey through a landscape of PBL, Transferable Skills, and Proficiency-Based Grading... While sitting at my desk today, I took a moment to just watch the activity happening in the room. Students were moving in and out of the classroom. Some grabbed glue guns, popsicle sticks, and cardboard. Others borrowed pens, books, or needed a signature to prove they met a deadline. There is no seating chart, no attendance. The entire team is buzzing with energy.  This is the IDU, and it’s awesome. The Project At the end of every year, Team Extreme comes together for one final, project-based, interdisciplinary unit (IDU). It's an exciting time, and has grown to be my favorite time of year. Each teacher on team comes together to guide a group of students (we call them our "case groups") through completion of a project of the students' design. We mix up our classes, students guide themselves through the project, and teachers b...

Day One The students line up at the door, blindfolded, and are led into the dark classroom where they take their seats. The message played above introduces them to their "new surroundings". They learn they are political prisoners under a totalitarian regime for fomenting insurrection. They must escape to continue the work of Revolution. However, in order to escape, they must complete the tasks set before them, and learn about the rights given to the people by the Constitutional amendments.  When the "prisoners" awaken they find that their key to freedom is locked tight. The only clue they have is on the table in front of them; a tablet with a simple instruction..."Open Me".  The students then completed a matching activity, with one side of the puzzle containing original text from the Bill of Rights, and the other side containing a "modern" translation of that text. Students had to match the correct sides in order...