“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