Prescription for May Headaches: Technology

MAYDAY! MAYDAY! 

It's May, which means "Get ready to not see your juniors!"

Below is an update that I sent out to the governance board, WAHP teachers, and professionals in the beginning of May. It tells the general story of what was going on in my PLTW class called 'Medical Interventions.'

As we get into the busy month of May, Waukesha Academy of Health Professional juniors find themselves increasingly busy with AP exams, field trips, forums, and an overall hectic nature as their year comes to an end. Because of this along with preparing students for an increase in responsibility, we enter a completely self-paced unit in Medical Interventions looking into designing alternative treatments for cancer.

Similar to online portions of college classes, we will be utilizing technology via BB9 and Google Apps to complete this unit. ​BB9 will act as a means for students not only to receive direction and information, but a place for them to complete formative check ins in the form of conclusion questions and discussion boards. Students will showcase their collaboration skills through this self-paced unit via Google Classroom and Google Slides. The entire unit will culminate in a scientific poster presentation where they research a nanotechnology, connect it with a specific cancer case study, create a treatment plan that follows ethical board regulations, and present their plan to their classmates.

This flexibility of pace allows students to practice their higher executive processing skills as they must schedule their time and effort properly as they are in and out of class frequently during this busy May schedule.

What isn't seen in this update is just how successful this unit was because of my work with technology. I attempted this self-paced, free-flowing class structure last year, but I saw a wide variety of challenges and successes amongst the different types of learners. This year, though, I saw many more successes than failures! Some of my work included:

• Adaptive release on BB9, pushing students towards work completion in order to gain access to the next step
• Better formatting of the online pages, alluring student interest in the most simple yet psychological way
• Test questions on BB9 serving as formative practice instead of conclusion questions they would answer in their notebooks, which I would never see. This also allowed me to grade and give feedback immediately upon submission.
• Discussion blogs between their classmates on topics throughout the unit
• Collaborative work with Google Slides

All of this made my expectations crystal clear as students progressed on their own pace throughout the unit, and as my post implies, it was the best medicine for that May Headache!

I am a Google Girl**

** with an aptitude for BB9. Google excites me and leads me to success with my students, but on my Model Tech Classroom journey, I am gaining insights on BB9 and finding the two discourses to be uniquely useful.

As I learned the ins and outs of teaching in my first year, I learned about PDPs, SLOs, PPGs, and all the LMNOP's that go into our daily teaching lives. One of those alphabet soup dishes included WICOR. This AVID strategy was highly touted in South HS and I aligned some of my philosophies with it's core values; Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, and Reading. I felt that each of those skills were valuable and necessary in my classes, so I was on board! 


Figuring out how I personally felt most comfortable implementing these effectively was now the question. Amongst working with coworkers and curriculum coaches, I found solace in technology.



In my work with technology, I've gravitated towards using Google Apps for Education, including Classroom, Docs, Drive, Slides, Forms, and Drawing. I found that each one was easy to access and easy to understand. I started finding that I was much more organized in my own teaching and started to see an evolution in my preparation and planning (including more WICOR) when I utilized these apps. 

Example #1 

My chemistry students were missing days of lecturing important concepts and I found it difficult to catch them up. The way I simplified this process was by focusing on my Google Slides presentations and embedding them onto BB9. That way, it was easy to reference how to access the material on their own time. Additionally, I started a Google Classroom for each of my classes and found it easier to upload documents onto that site. I started to see a shift in responsibility. Students knew where to look and found it easy to catch up. This was vital for me as I traveled to 4 different classrooms and taught 3 different preps! 

Extra goodie: When I went to the Google Tech Summit Conference (thanks South admin!) I was introduced to Slides Carnival. It's a website that offers really pretty, organized, and interesting Google Slides templates that have transformed my lectures!               →

Slidescarnival.com 

WICOR values increased: Inquiry, Organization

Example #2

Google Forms is the newest and most exciting tech tool that I've been utilizing more and more in my classes in Year 2. I started my teaching firmly believing that formative check ins were highly useful and important for students. I incorporated them into my classes, but found myself not using them as I had planned. I would give the formative and not have enough time to grade them to give back in a timely fashion, or not have time in class for students to benefit from seeing their individual mistakes. I was very disheartened when this happened. 

As this was happening, I started using Google Forms. They were easy to send out and collect. A bit of my issue was ameliorated by the tech, but I still wasn't using the teaching tool as I had wanted. Then Google Forms upgraded and introduced its "Quiz Function." 

This new function allowed me to assign points to questions along with correct answers. Students were able to see where they were making mistakes instantly. I started to write my formatives in ways that allowed students to really see where their misconceptions were! Google Forms Quiz function also added in a feedback option that made the tech tool EVEN BETTER. Depending on their answer, I could add feedback via my own writing, a website, or video. This meant that instead of the formative relying on ME and my lack of time, the students would have a next step immediately.

This made me ecstatic. This is what technology is supposed to do in the classroom. This was Modification (woo SAMR) and the best part was that a) IT MADE MY INSTRUCTION BETTER and b) IT MADE MY LIFE EASIER.

WICOR values increased: Inquiry, Writing, Reading, Organization

My journey with Google continues as the apps continue to evolve. I'm finding that every month or so, Google adds a new option to their apps, such as the ability of adding more than one document per Google Classroom Assignment or post. I find ease and comfort in these upgrades since Google is such a "User Friendly" system.

Into the Lion's Den, Welcome to the District, Ms. Bauknecht

Howdy.


I'm Cassie Bauknecht. I teach science at South High School. This is my 2nd year with the district and 2.5th year as a teacher. I've taught Special Ed Chemistry, Environmental Science, Biology, Chemistry, and Medical Interventions. 

2 years ago in mid-August, I got hired with Waukesha School District. I upended myself from my Madison residency and moved to Waukesha in the blink of an eye to officially start my full-time career. I had 2 brand new classes along with a 3rd that I was familiar with. I was new to Ipads, new to Apple, and never had taught at a 1-to-1 school before. 



I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING. 


With the bustle of the new school year, I was tossed into the lion's den and told "good luck!" in all senses, technology included. It took me a few months before I even touched my own Ipad, knew what BB9 stood for, or climbed off of the ground, which felt like I was experiencing at least a 7 on the Richter scale daily anyway with all the newness of my life, onto the SAMR ladder.

In cliff notes, my tech journey has looked like this:



1. Stare nervously at my tech collecting dust, worrying about how to even start.
2. Join the Vanguard team because someone at some point in time told me to join some sort of professional group.
3. Go to Google Summit.
4. Stare nervously at all my notes from the Summit, worrying about how to even start.
5. START! Google Apps for Education was my clarity.

Since my actual inception into the tech world, I've become an advocate revolving around the philosophy that technology is an integral part of our current world and we need to learn how to use it for good, not evil. 

Leading me into today. I am 2 months into my Model Technology Classroom journey, 1 presentation at Waukesha One in the books, and while I still stare nervously at the idea of learning about the vast amount of tech out in the world today, I am excited to start advocating for tech use in the classroom!