Week Five: Essential Question: How do we maintain excellence as we innovate?

In the words of Dave Burgess, “Create an experience not just a lesson.”  In order to maintain excellence as we innovate we must make connections.  Connections with our students personally, connections with our student’s prior knowledge, and connections to our student’s current interests.  In order to create those experiences and connections we must know our students, we must know our content, and yet we must constantly be learning. This requires a great deal of flexibility and forward thinking.

One strategy that Dave Burgess shared that he uses in his classroom as an alternative assessment is nonlinguistic representations such as painting or sculpting (with play-dough).  I have used this strategy very little in my own classroom.  As it turns out, “helping students understand and represent knowledge nonlinguistically is the most under-used instructional strategy” (Marzano et al., 2001). 

A second strategy that Burgess shared in his book, Teach Like a Pirate is that of questioning.  He reports learning the importance of questions from the motivational speaker, Anthony Robbins.  In our text from last semester, Understanding By Design, the authors state essential questions are the doorways to understanding.  Essential questions are designed to, “stimulate thought, provoke inquiry, and spark more questions.”

Finally, Burgess offers eliminating and smoothing out transitions is key to maintaining engagement.  He shares that he takes care of all foreseeable interruptions prior to launching into his hook.  This is good classroom management.  Four characteristics of a well-managed classroom include (1)  high level of student involvement with work (2)  clear student expectations (3) relatively little wasted time, confusion, or disruption, and (4) work oriented but relaxed and pleasant climate. (Wong & Wong).

Providing life changing lessons (LCL) requires us as teachers to be well prepared and passionate about the delivery. 

Burgess, Dave. (2012). Teach like a Pirate. Dave Burgess Consulting Inc. San Diego, California.

Retrieved from:  Focus on Effectiveness, Research-Based Strategies, Nonlinguistic Representation http://www.netc.org/focus/strategies/nonl.php

Wong, Harry K., & Wong, Rosemary. (1998) How to Be An Effective Teacher, The First Days of School,  Harry K Wong Publications, Inc. Mountain View California.

 

Week Four Summary

This week’s focus was on classroom engagement and passionate teaching.  Dave Burgess says to be mindful of three different kinds of passion; content passion, professional passion, and personal passion to become a powerfully passionate teacher.  I spent a lot of time this week reflecting on these three passions, both at home and at school. I read a lot of good blogs this week with excellent references and sources for innovation and engagement strategies.  I felt like I had more to share during this week’s Twitter meeting simply because I am passionate about teaching and believe I have in place many good strategies for engaging my students.  I sincerely believe that building a relationship with my students where they feel safe, valued, and appreciated creates a foundation for learning.

I was part of the team working on the final teacher rubric.  My role was to ensure a visually attractive document.  In order to that I had to learn how to use the editing tools within the wikispace.  I benefitted from strong team members who had already created the structure, carefully chose descriptions, and verbiage that was precise and strong.

I also created a Game page for Team 3 in order to clean up our Wikispace as suggested during our WebEx meeting on Tuesday.  Luckily it really wasn’t difficult figuring out how to add the page and the copy/paste method was successful.  I did try to clean up our first person dialog and following a suggestion from “Jason” I included hyperlinks in place of website addresses.

Week 4 Essential Question: Essential Question: How do we keep our lessons engaging? Does innovation play a part in this?

I have to say I’ve laughed out loud on a number occasions reading Teach Like a Pirate this week….something I think Dave Burgess would appreciate and be motivated by.  Like Dave, my classroom rules are simple;  Be kind and be helpful.  Every word or choice can be measured against those two traits.  If they are not kind or helpful, they are not appropriate for the classroom.  I too, agree that building a foundation together that is both safe and fun is time well spent early on.  Additionally, I perform everyday for my class.  I am very comfortable being silly. (My husband says there’s a reason I’ve been in first grade for so many years. I get them!)   I’m totally comfortable flying around my room a couple times a day if need be.  Humor and/or silliness is one trick of the trade for engaging kids.  Little kids are just as surprised as older ones when their teacher does something completely unexpected.  Phonics can be a buzz-kill.  Reading fluency a bore.  Finding ways to be innovative and engaging are not just fun, their necessary to keep from the monotony of the same ‘ol same ‘ol.  Making Oobleck following a lesson on the /oo/ sound and reading Dr. Seuss’s Bartholomew and The Oobleck sure goes a lot further than oo, oo, oo!

Humor is not the only tool in the toolbox though.  Building relationships, getting to know my kids, and allowing them to get to know me is a big motivator, too.  Sharing stories about my own children, my husband, family, and friends are all valuable.  One quick example:  We are currently raising money for Pennies for Patience.  This is one campaign that is near and dear to me and I share with my class why.  I bring them close to me on the rug and in a soft voice I tell them about the two little boys I had 3 years ago- one with leukemia and one with lymphoma, and how BOTH of those boys are doing well, thriving even, because of the care they received free of cost to their families.  I fill them in that one of those little guys is one of OUR reading buddies upstairs.  We talk about making a difference, helping one another out, and encourage working together…I could go on.  All that to say, these kiddos brought in $85 over the next THREE days…and they’re still going strong. 

I attended a workshop with Anita Archer in the spring of 2007 and starting using (or polishing) several of her strategies for increasing student engagement.  First, I always try to keep a “perky pace”.  This helps to keep students focused and lessens the lag time where students quickly can become disruptive.  Secondly, I use a lot more whole group responses vs. raising hands and waiting.  Why have only one student respond when everyone can?  Third, I give feedback constantly and often use it to “rescue” students with the wrong answer.  I usually say, “I’m so glad you said that!” or “I was hoping someone would say that!”   I also use music as a tool in the classroom, often paired with sign language.  We sing silly songs about counting, vowels, and months of the year, and going on bear hunts.  We dance and exercise to YouTube videos.   We generally have a good time 🙂

I have to admit though that a lot of my entertainment/performances come from the seat of my pants.  I rarely put in the time planning to be engaging mainly because I spend my planning time planning, prepping, communicating, correcting, cleaning, analyzing, organizing, and all the other the other IN Y OUR FACE gotta be done kinds of things we as educators must do.  And, as fun as it is to be entertaining, a full day of it in an elementary classroom presents a whole new set of challenges, classroom management being the biggie.  It’s quite a bit different teaching 28 first graders through out a full day of content, transitions, lunch, etc. than a fresh group of teenage students every 60 minute or so. Not to say there are not challenges there as well, just that our multiple objectives are very different and present unique challenges.  Both require innovation to engage and challenge not just our students, but ourselves as well.

Burgess, Dave. Teach like a Pirate: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity,

and Transform Your Life as an Educator.

Archer, Anita, and Charles Hughes; Explicit Instruction Effective and Efficient Training; http://explicitinstruction.org/

Pennies for Patients   http://www.schoolandyouth.org/school/Controller?action=loadContent&itemid=91060

Jack Hartman, Math All Around Me

Jack Hartman, Shake, Rattle n Read

Jack Hartman, Let’s Get Fit, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKSZ1dfiLnA

Dr. Jean, 100 Macarena http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGKXZVxAffM

Week Three Reflection

When I read this week’s assignment I was immediately intimidated.  I was fully unaware of how to work within a Wiki and unconvinced that it would foster a place for effective communication.  I am still getting my feet wet with the whole Wiki thing, but I have been graciously partnered with great thinkers and capable communicators.  We were able to share our own criteria and then narrow it down in terms of what we all had in common.  A good deal of discussion was simply to define specifically what we had in mind.  Once this was determined Sara L. typed it into a standard rubric form.  It flows nicely using both verbal descriptions and numerical values;  Score of 1- Does not meet Standards, 2- Somewhat meets Standards, 3- Meets the Standards.  The verbiage is clear and specific at each level creating a tool that will be easily applied to a wide range of serious games for determining criteria for appropriate classroom use.

Our rubric includes eight components of a serious game, with a high score of 3 for each.  Each area of our rubric contains thoughtfully considered criteria. This means the most desirable games would score somewhere around 24 points.  As a team we haven’t discussed the range of scores, and what would be considered passing.  Perhaps it won’t be the score per say, but the ability to rank serious games because of their scores.   Lee said something about a scale of 100 during our Twitter meeting.  Now I wonder if this is what she was referring to.

“When students learn by experience their understanding and retention are higher” (Gartner research, 2006).

Serious-Gaming.info

Good Video Games and Good Gaming; Gee

Games in Education:  Serious Games

 

 

Week 2 Reflection

I felt more confident of the task for this week’s blog, determining criteria for a serious game that would be used in my classroom.   Because I don’t have a huge repertoire of personal experiences with serious games at this point, I researched online and explored possible games for my class.  I believe that because I am a primary teacher I bring a slightly different perspective for criteria.  Most serious games are designed for higher level learners and therefor most of the research I found was at those levels.  I really liked what Gee had to say about using games for educational purposes as well as the paper The Serious Game: What Educational Benefits? Their research shows, “that learning through the serious game has educational values that are based on learning concepts advocated by constructivist psycho-cognitive theories; it guarantees intrinsic motivation, generates cognitive conflicts and provides situated learning.”

I just entered my first post to my team’s wiki, and based on the comments from my blog this week I’m not sure how I influenced the learning of others in this class.  Perhaps just the reminder that we do have young students to think about as we look at potential criteria. 

Week Two: What are common components of serious games?

While evaluating criteria for a serious game in my classroom I’ve had the challenge of finding grade appropriate games; I teach first grade.  I found one called Habitat Heroes.  Habitat Heroes is targeted at students between the ages of 6-14 years olds (where most serious games are intended for 13+ players).  While playing students engage in a virtual habitat, travel around the world, learning about endangered animals, environmental issues, and different cultures.  Currently my class is working in a unit from our core reading curriculum called North, South, East, and West. Habitat Heroes would be an excellent extension or lab, if you will (thank you Tomas).  Additionally, future units this year include growing things, recycling,and habitats all of which will be supported through Habitat Heroes. 

 

The research I’ve done thus far into Habitat Heroes suggests that this game would meet my five top criteria for use of a serious game in my classroom:

First, it is linked to standards though multiple objectives. This game has explicit educational purposes that are addressed through a number of specific objectives and experiences.  One simple example is the content based vocabulary used in context.

Second, Habitat Hero’s offers an authentic, virtual environment.  Here students are able to interact with real world issues with the safety of taking risks in order to better understand cause and effect.  In this way the game is self reinforcing. Students are able to play several different roles allowing them multiple perspectives in different areas of knowledge.  

Third, students are easily able to learn how to interact with the game.  This ensures success early on as well as creating excitement for the players. Performance verses content as suggested by Gee.

Fourth, it requires students to think critically and problem solve using both newly acquired information and prior knowledge in order to advance.  Students are learning and responding to their learning as they play the game.  In this way the game supports what Gee refers to as System Thinking, “players are encouraged to think about relationships, not isolated events, facts, and skills.”

Finally, Habitat Heroes promotes positive, responsible choices.  I have two classroom rules, to be kind and be helpful.  We continually measure our choices against those two things whether it be our words or our actions.  I believe that what we spend time on in class should benefit the development of both the individual student as well as the community. 

References:

The Serious Game:  What Educational Benefits?  Research 2012
Good Video Games and Good Learning   Gee 

Should Your Kids Play Serious Game? Article 2011

Habitat Heroes  Website About Us

Wembley Primary School – Serious Games Sample school with teacher reflection; video

Week One Reflection

Have I contributed to anyone’s learning about serious gaming this week?  If you count my family and colleagues into the mix I would say yes.  I’ve share with them my findings as I’ve tried to process and wrap my own head around this week.  Chris summed things up quite well when she described the experience of looking at serious gaming for the first time like taking a drink from a fire hose. YES!  I’ve felt that way since we got the first email from Lee about class not quite a week ago. 

I am still trying to get my feet under me and yet many others seem to have so much history, are fired up, and raring to go. I’m thankful for their insight, their patience, and their willingness to share.  I am grateful for Chris’s regular contact this week as we’ve tried to decipher the information we’re taking in and just what we’re suppose to be doing with it.  Many others have contributed to my learning this week as well:

My first shout out goes to Nicole.  I so appreciated your post about doubling up your playing time with exercise and also for sharing the game, The Walk.  Just that gave me a whole new perspective on how to play serious games. Plus your voice in your blog is fun, friendly, and insightful. 

Secondly, I appreciated Brandi’s position about serious games being one in the same with educational games.  This possibility creates an endless list of classroom opportunities even for my young first grade learners. However, by having a clearly defined definition of the criteria for a serious game, I agree that as educators we can be more discerning with the games we play.

Thirdly, many of my classmates motioned the benefits serious games can have to real world experiences.  Sara was one who commented on the safety the virtual world provides for students to take risks and walk in others’ shoes.

In summary, I’ve covered a lot of new ground this week but it’s been new learning of my own… new Twitter account, new TweetDeck, new blog, new Wiki, and LOTS of new information. Tonight I realized that I need practice with posting to my blog.  My Friday post didn’t POST; perhaps I previewed it instead of publishing?  I was able to get copy/paste a URL into LIveText…  Regardless, I’m looking forward to what’s still to come and contributing in whatever ways I can.

Week One: Continued

Wow!  What a week.  I thought I had at least an idea of what a serious game was when I first read the term at the beginning of the week.  I was so wrong.  After viewing the Youtube videos on gaming and spending time looking at the four examples of serious games from this week’s assignment I have a totally new appreciation for what a serious game is.

While exploring the site World Without Oil I found the following:  A serious game is one that intends more than entertainment for its players. http://worldwithoutoil.org/metafaq2.htm

WWO was  a serious game that players could participate in in a variety of ways for a 32 day period back in 2007.  Players were encouraged to use their favorite communication method which included blogs, emails, videos, created images, and even phone calls. This surprised me!  As a result of the many different ways to interact with the game, it archived some impressive numbers:

This GAME became life changing for many of it’s players.  They found that they were, “living in an alternative reality making real life change.”

Envoke, another serious game has had similar outcomes for its players.

Evoke problems include a variety of subjects from food security and energy, to education and human rights. http://www.urgentevoke.com/page/how-to-play

Of the four games, I was most intrigued by Superbetter, probably because I can see an application to my own life and I now realize that is part of the big picture when playing serious games.  Superbetter focuses on achieving health goals through the core strengths of physical, mental, emotional, and social abilities.  It is a serious game that boasts the ability to make players happier, more confident, and more determined through their successful completion of different quests.

https://www.superbetter.com/faq#what-it-means-to-play

I know I have a lot to learn and I know I’m not alone in the view I had of serious games prior to acquiring this new knowledge.  My kids, family, friends, and colleagues that I talked to about serious games this week shared the same perceptions.  Fortunately, I was able to share some benefits of time playing serious games.

Want to be Smarter?  Play Video Games

Week One: What about serious games?

I have never played a serious game online.  I am one of those people who wonders where gamers get the extra time in their day to just play.  To get started this week I watched Jane McGonigal’s Ted Talk, Gaming Can Make a Better World.   I have to admit the four super powers she outlines as a result of 10,000+ hours of playing games are all desirable.  She’s offered a strong argument to find the time to play. I have much to learn this semester and hope that as a result of the time commitment to this class I’ll be on my way to being one of those Super Empowered Hopeful Individuals.

Week One: What about serious games?

I have never played a serious game online.  I am one of those people who wonders where gamers get the extra time in their day to just play.  To get started this week I watched Jane McGonigal’s Ted Talk, Gaming Can Make a Better World.   I have to admit the four super powers she outlines as a result of 10,000+ hours of playing games are all desirable.  She’s offered a strong argument to find the time to play. I have much to learn this semester and hope that as a result of the time commitment to this class I’ll be on my way to being one of those Super Empowered Hopeful Individuals.