This afternoon, thanks to Kendal Shomura, my video is done.  I have completed the poster and the webpages and am breathing major sighs of relief.  It has been quite a process, but very valuable for me and my teaching .  I have enjoyed pushing myself to learn and accomplish things I probably would never have taken the time to attempt - namely, the video.  
  Challenge-Based Learning has broadened my view of what students can do.  Every student rose to the occasion - in their own way.  It was a gift to be able to spend a good amount of time doing our immigration project because it allowed for us to teach so many valuable skills at a reasonable pace.   Students learned research skills, presentation skills, interview skills, movie-making, blogging, and so many other skills (like leaving messages on voicemails) that it is difficult to name them all.  
  Another thing they learned was to take responsibility for their own learning, which is so valuable and important.  This ability has given most of our students (I would like to say all - and  it may be all - the realization that their education is relevant and useful in this society.  Right there, I feel that I answered my Driving Question -  How can I, as an eighth grade teacher, solve the problem of disengagement of Hispanic boys , and find a way to attain successful and meaningful learning by all members of our student community? ​
  I feel that I have accomplished what I set out to do last February. I think I have found one way to engage students and make them value their time spent in school.

    Today, Sunday, we met at Touro to go over what needs to be done and how we can best be successful at finishing up our posters, websites, and movies.  It was great.  How fun to actually be with our cohort in person.  Martha and Pamela were very helpful and encouraging to us .  
    I am feeling the need to spend some very focused time completing our projects, but, first, I need to see the culmination of our Immigration Challenge Project which is happening this coming week.  It is now up to the students to come up with their journey, justification of their process, and their presentation of their challenge projects.  I think they are ready and excited.  I believe the project has opened the eyes of many students to the importance of this project; not only for their understanding of the massive issue of immigration, but also for their own ownership of their learning.  
    Even though there have been flaws in this project, it is a start.  I truly believe it is a model for future challenge projects.  I am really curious to see the presentations this week.  I know some will be fantastic, but , probably,the most important ones will be the presentations done by the very group I have tried to engage the most - Latino males.  
    I am really excited and nervous.  We have encouraged community to participate as audience members.  That is nerve-racking!  BUT...it is really an important part of the whole idea of students getting engaged in their learning.  It demonstrates to them the viability of their education and the realization that what they learn and produce matters.
    I am also really excited to read their reflections and find out how they respond to the survey I am giving them on Friday.  I think it will be enlightening....either way.
    What a great group of people we have in our cohort!  

    This is a very fun and interesting period of my Immigration Challenge Project.  This week started with our team who placed immigration photographs at the Roasting Company in St Helena.  They did a great job with their photos, assisted by a fantastic mentor.  They will be exhibiting their fantastic photographs through November 14.  Then, today, November 1, two teams presented their immigration altars at the Dia de Los Muertos event at Napa Valley College in St. Helena.  I was very impressed with their altars..they did an amazing job, and also had to deal with what to do when it rains at an event.  They had to think on their feet, and they did it.   
    Francisco Jimenez will be here in the Valley this week and two of our teams are doing presentations at his event at St. John's in Napa, the Lincoln Theatre in Yountville, and at Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School.  While that is happening, other teams will be presenting their challenges on the quad at RLS and will be discussing their projects and their challenges with, hopefully, an interested audience.  
    On Friday, we have a speaker coming form Mike Thompson's office who will discuss government policy on immigration with the assistance of the team who is doing just that.   That group will introduce the speaker and engage the 8th grade class in a discussion on immigration with the help of the professional.    Hopefully, it will work!
    After their challenges, they have a week to prepare the presentations which will trace their journey, their process, and their reflection during this project.  During the week of November 16-19, each team will be presenting to members of the community what they did.
     It is a very interesting project and I definitely plan to do it again next year.  I think it is a process, but worth it.  For those who have seemed sleepy and disengaged throughout the process, I think they will find that they see what they could have done when the others present.  I do not think it will be successful for all, but has potential for awakening for the individual students in the future.  They have been exposed to so many cool things.
    I am loving it and am eternally grateful to Jennifer Marinace, the 8th grade English teacher,  for doing this journey with me.

    The Immigration Challenge Project is doing amazingly well.  Of course, we have teams that are pretty dysfunctional, but we have been providing loads of group counseling to those in need.  There is a building of excitement now that we are very clear on what our purpose is and the ideas are becoming better because  students are asking great questions and figuring out what they need to know and what is relevant to their projects.  
    I have not had too much time to figure out my logo, taglines, etc. but I feel that I am doing exactly what I set out to do in this program.  I am excited to get down to the video, poster and website.  I certainly feel that I am prepared with lots of content for our Capstone.  
    It is great that we are finally getting back to having class.  I miss the structure!

   I have attached the PPT we have been using for the students so they can understand each stage of the project.  I hope you can open it.

​

“We, the people of this continent, are not fearful of foreigners, because most of us were once foreigners."  Pope Francis in his address to Congress

    When I started this Masters Program, I was very unhappy and frustrated with the lack of interest in school by so many of our 8th grade students.  I was so disillusioned that I decided to make it my quest in this program.  My driving question was and is this:
    How can I, as an 8th grade teacher, solve the disengagement of so 
many of my students and find a way to attain successful learning by all 
members of my student community?
   I am still trying to answer this question, but I think I have found something that makes my students interested and engaged.  Pam Redmond suggested to me that I try putting together a Challenge Based Learning (CBL) project in my class.  I immediately was interested in the idea because I love projects and this made sense because students had to study an issue and then go farther and find a challenge that would make their issue come to life and perhaps change the world, or at least engage the community. This project is my Capstone project and I am thrilled with the results, so far.
    I have to admit that my class this year is much more interested in what is going on, but there are still a few who could care less about school.  We are two weeks into the project.  I am working with the 8th grade English teacher so it seems so fluid and meaningful to the students.
    So far, the students have identified their topic - the overarching theme is Immigration (timely, yes?).  The topics range from comparing and contrasting immigration in the 19th century to now  to creating an altar for Dia de los Muertos which will honor immigrants and their paths.  We have websites being built to help people learn how to become citizens, a study of the migration that is occurring out of Middletown and what people will be doing and where they are going.  We have a feast celebrating immigrant cultures being planned for early November, and on and on.  There are 25 teams.  The cool part is that they are all engaged in what  they are doing.  I want to make sure it stays that way.  
    This week, we will start the research stage - stage two.  I want to make sure that no one gets bogged down and confused so I am going to keep talking to each group each day to gauge their progress.
    The next stage will be the challenge phase.  That is when they have to decide how they are going to take their research to  the next level.  After that, phase four will be presentations to community members.
    This project is energizing to me, my fellow teacher, and most importantly, our students.
    Enough about that..I just created my screencast and then my Zaption.  Advice if you haven't done it yet...do not use Screencast.com!  I spent hours trying to get my video to download to anything and it did not work. It definitely did not work with Haiku, which is our LMS in St. Helena.  What worked great was Screencast-o-Matic.  Loved it!  And I do love Zaption.
    So there you have it for this week

    Well, here we are back in the thick of things at school.  It is turning out to be a very good year.  Our students are really delightful people and they are, for the most part, engaged in their learning - so far.  I have been working on creating the Challenge Based Learning Project that I am doing for my Capstone.  It is on Immigration and is a six week project.  We introduced it to our students last Thursday and, as of tomorrow,  they are setting up their teams and deciding on the focus of their project.  
    The process of putting the project together has been a real learning experience.  There are a great deal of things to keep in mind as we create.  It is really important that our students understand what it is they have to do because the last thing I want is for students to become disengaged because they do not get what it is all about.
    What it is about is that we are having students choose from 25 different project ideas (or they can come up with their own) and they have to do research on the topic and come up with a challenge after they fully understand what their topic is about.  Examples:  

1. Learn how to contact and interact with our government representatives.  Find out what you can do to change immigration laws and start action. Start a political campaign to get your ideas heard by our school, our community.  (2 groups)
   
2. Learn about immigrants coming in from Central America.  What are the issues they are fleeing and what can you do to help?   Many facilities are being shut down that were assisting these immigrants.  What are the alternatives? 
   
3. Study the migration of African Americans from the Southern States during the 20th century.  Why are so many migrating back?  Study letters, art,(Jacob Lawrence),  music, etc.  Read The Warmth from Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson.

These are just three examples out of 25, but you get the idea.  Ideally, there is something that will pique the interest of every student and they will engage in it and love it so much that they completely change their attitude towards learning.
    The other thing that is attached to this project is that students have to present their final project to a group of community members.  I think this will help with buy-in.  
    I am really excited about this project.  I am fortunate to work with a great English teacher who is equally thrilled about "getting out on a limb" with some new ideas for projects.  I will be updating this blog weekly with progress and pitfalls.  
    I am a little nervous about not having class this month.  I have started playing with the website and am thinking a great deal about how to make a movie.  Next weekend is going to be a push to get lots of things going.  

   It feels great to dust off my Weebly account and jump back into our fun world of sharing information about education.  I am loving applying all my new knowledge to my classroom this year.  I feel rejuvenated.
   The phrenetic video I just watched, featuring Adam Bellow, resonated with me.  I know we have all experienced the things he spoke about.  I find that that f-word he referred to - FEAR -has hold of many who want to be forward thinking, but are trapped by school board members and administrators who have their lawyers telling them what to do.  Yes, and those are lawyers who have no clue what is going on in education right now.  
   I completely agree with what Mr. Bellow said about Professional Development.  We are exposed to so much useless PD because those who rule are susceptible to the influence of those who convince them that what they have to say is important and relevant to teachers in the classroom.  My dream PD comes from my fellow teachers, who are, for the most part, busy getting Masters in Education, taking workshops about their subject matter at Universities in this area or online, or are spending time honing their tech skills through tech conferences.  My fellow teachers are brilliant and we do not get to spend enough time learning from one another.  
    This year, we started the year with a PD that was relevant and interesting.  It was on GRR - Gradual Release of Responsibility - and was presented by Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey.  They had substantive information that will help my presentation of content.   I salute the administration for making that happen, but I am already feeling the same groups' hesitation for doing non-data related projects within our classrooms.  I am feeling their nervousness about PBL or CBL (Challenge Based Learning) because they veer from the "known" results.    
   Another thing that resonated with me was his mentioning of the need for continuous training in technological tools.  I have thought lately that, when this program is over, we are going to need "booster" classes to keep us up to snuff with what is available and new in education.    
   It is the "best" and "worst" time to be a teacher because there are so many variables that define our jobs.  I think it is the best time because we are in the middle of a fantastic revolution in learning and teaching.  It is like the Industrial Revolution, only this time it is the Tech Revolution.  We get to be a part of the transformation of how we all receive and transmit knowledge.  
   It is the worst time because we have to help ourselves, our administrators, our students, and our community make this painful transformation to the new order of education.  We also have to take on new roles in the educational world:  coaches, counsellors, facilitators, cheerleaders....the list goes on.  
   That is why I am a believer in the power of collaboration.  It is what we need to use to get through all the daunting tasks, both wonderful and scary.

<<<<<Missing here is Citizenship - the 5th C


     There is no doubt that I was profoundly influenced and uplifted by the book I read The Smartest Kids in the World by Amanda Ripley.  Her writing was so easy to read and was very clear on what she had  to tell about education in the rest of the world.  While I was reading, I constantly reflected on what I am doing as a contributor to the poor performance of our students as compared to such countries as Poland and Finland.  I used to make snide comments about Finland's literacy, saying that they learn to read by reading subtitles of American tv shows.  Okay..maybe they do learn this way, but the country has also turned around attitudes towards education and educators in a profoundly innovative way.
    Yes, my thinking about my teaching has moved to a different level.  I am ready to create a year that will be transformative for my students.  I am hyper-aware of the 5 C's - collaboration, communication, critical thinking, creativity, and citizenship and I am going to consciously address each element every day.  Students need constant help with collaboration.  They have all been taught how to do it by now, yet they are still problems that have to be addressed.  One of the big problems is the slacker.  There is always a slacker.  How do I deal with that person who will not participate?  How do we deal with the person who insists on doing everything?  How do we deal with the complainers?  I guess by making the collaborative process more interesting?  I will work on that.  
    Communication...if nothing else, I think I need to listen more and talk less.  The key to effective learning is to know the audience.  Sometimes,when I do listen, it seems that what is being said is so inane that I discount it, yet this is how these students think and their thoughts need acknowledgement.  Plus...if their thinking seems skewed, maybe it is because things are not making sense to them and they are just expressing what they think they are learning.
     Critical thinking...these students need to stop thinking about which answer is right: a, b, or c and start thinking deeper about the learning.  But, these students need teachers who will guide them to that place where they know there is more than one answer to most questions.  i feel that Project-based learning and Challenge-based learning is extremely stimulating to the critical thinking processes.  
    Creativity - Innovation:  The more the better.  With creativity comes stimulation to learn and that is why we need more opportunity for student-generated  innovation in the classroom.  Often, students resist the opportunity to create because they are so used to being told what to know.  That is so five years ago!!!
    Citizenship:  yes, this is critically important for our students on so many levels.  They need to understand their role in the scheme of their home, school, town, state, government, We know how important it is to be digital citizens and custodians of integrity in all aspects of their lives.
    I have learned the importance of rigor.  It is what is making the education systems Poland, Finland, and South Korea so progressive.   Granted, South Korea is a bit overboard as is China.  Those two countries are creating robots, in the name of national pride.  No longer should we  accept work that we feel is just okay.  Our students need to know that failure is okay.  The reason we have tolerated mediocrity is because we were always in a hurry to get the standards met for the test.  It is time to "simmer down" and start demanding excellence in smaller increments of curricula..