Cooperative Learning Update #busedu

Well, I've done it. I've gone over a month without a blog post! It seems so easy to start the year with the ambition to write twice a week, but here I have gone five weeks and posted nothing. However, I have been busy. Since that time, I've been to Connecticut for their Business Education Conference and I've traveled to serve on the Business, Marketing, and Information Technology Advisory committee for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in Missouri. So, I have been busy. Oh, and I got my Google Level 2 certification, too. I guess October was a busy month!

Yesterday, I was one of my school "volunteers" to let a visiting school observe my classroom. They wanted to see some cooperative learning strategies in action. So, I chose to demonstrate Quiz, Quiz, Trade with my Web Design class. We started Adobe Fireworks about a week ago in that class and I wanted to work on their vocabulary. It seems in my computer classes, students can learn to "do" things but often don't know what those things are called. That rings especially true for tools. They know that the "tool with the pointing finger" is the one they want, but they forget it's called the Smudge tool, for example. So, I created a StudyStack for the class on Fireworks. Then, I went to the Print option and printed front/back index card. We used these cards for the class activity.

It went well. Many commented on how they learned a few things that I only mentioned once in the lectures the previous week (particularly the colors in a JPG vs. GIF) or the names of a few tools. And, they were all engaged, active and moving around. So, that was a win.

After that, we came back to the room, I did a 7 minute demo on something that I hadn't discussed much, and then they partnered up to do what I called "Howdy Partner" Fireworks activity. Essentially, it was steps for how to edit and animate a baby clipart. But, instead of how I have done this in the past with my Photoshop class, these kiddos had to fill in some blanks (that referenced the vocabulary we'd used in the StudyStack) before they were allowed to begin. Then, each partner had a role and they'd switch back and forth as to who was running the mouse and who was reading the instructions. Here's a screen capture of page 1--

It went super well, and the visiting teachers seemed to really enjoy the lesson. And, my kids were totally engaged the whole hour.

It's sometimes difficult to really do cooperative learning in the computer classroom, but the rewards are worth it.

Happy Wednesday, friends!

Scoot Activity in Computers!

I got the idea for a Scoot activity after reading some math blogs, actually. Apparently, some cool math teachers have come up with a "moving" worksheet type activity where you place flashcards or some math problem or activity at each desk and students "scoot" through them at intervals.

This sounded like something fun to try in my computer-based classes. And, in Photoshop, they've just learned selection tools, including how to add and subtract from selection. I thought this might be a fun way to practice. So, I put a folder of images out on a drive. They opened the background image, saved it to their folder, and then began selecting the first item from the folder to bring over to the background. After about 5 minutes, I announced SCOOT! They moved on, regardless of how finished the selection was, and scooted to the next seat. Then, they had to pick up where the previous person left off. When a selection is completed, they were to Refine Edge, bring it over to the background, and rename the layer. After the first long round, I used set intervals.

I used an interval timer online from http://www.intervaltimer.com and set it to no warm up and no cool down and just set a time of 120 seconds for the "high intensity" or work time and 15 seconds for the "low intensity" or scoot time. I'll do this again in my afternoon class and will probably adjust that a bit to 150 seconds of work time and 30 seconds to scoot.

I also threw in few kinks to change it up. A few times, I would announce specific instructions like:

• Double scoot (scoot two seats instead of one)
• Random scoot (like musical chairs, scoot wherever you want)
• Observation even or odd (so, that means if you are at an odd computer and I called Observe Odd instead of Scoot, you stand and just watch people if you are at an odd computer and provide feedback if you see someone doing something ineffectively or just watch and see how others are using tools)

It worked out pretty well. However, I did run across one problem at the end. A few students had NOTHING drug into their main image. So, not sure if someone deleted the selected items or if no one ever drug something over because the selections were never complete. I'll have to monitor that a little better when I try it with the afternoon class. A few of the items were really hard, so I might suggest some of the easier ones to be the first ones they do just to make sure everyone does finish something as part of the composite.

As with most learning activities, I don't take grades so no one was penalized if they got back to their computer and there wasn't much to work with. But, I did give them about 10 minutes back on their home computers at the end of class.

Students seemed to like moving around and the class period zoomed by. We'll see how it goes with some tweaking. But, I'm excited to try this sometime with my Web Design class in a coding exercise!

Called an Audible in Computer Apps yesterday... worked great! #busedu #cooplearning

Yesterday, we started Access 3 in my Advanced Computer Apps class. It's not an easy unit; we're getting deep into queries and calculated fields. Fun stuff.

We did two things instead of just diving in. First, I had them go online using the SAM program we have (through Cengage learning, Skills Assessment Manager) and to read the "intro" parts of each assigned task that goes along with our unit. We aren't using a textbook right now, so that's their textbook, so to speak. They have 40 "pages" or tasks that go with this unit. Anyway, I gave them a fill in the blank page and the answers came from those readings. Mind you, I take few grades and this is not for a grade, but rather to introduce them to the vernacular of this unit of Access. It's boring, though. And I thought... hmm... what could we do to make this better? With "worksheet" types of activities, it's very easy for students to just buddy up and share answers, which doesn't really help them learn it. Looking up helps in learning, but asking the neighbor what you got for number 4? Not so much.

So, I called an audible! I announced, as I looked through the readings, that "question #4 on your paper is from SAM #23!" Immediately, everyone zips over to 23 to read the paragraph. I thought, ok, cool. It's kind of like a game now. I threw out another number. Then, I told them that they could probably make friends if they threw out numbers as they found answers and that they had my permission to share numbers, but not answers. And, they did!

It actually worked really well. They were looking up, reading, shouting out page numbers, and people were finding the answers on their own. Gosh, it was almost too simple.

After about a half hour of that, I divided them into four groups and handed out a group activity. I talked briefly about what it means to "query" (defined: ask a question about something) and talked about how people use queries in databases. Then, they were assigned a fictional database with fields and they had to try to determine possible queries that could be run on that data. Here's one of the examples after the students finished brainstorming:

We haven't even got into Access yet to talk about queries, but I feel confident that when I do today, they will be able to understand what's going on. Between already hearing the terminology to doing this short 10 minute group activity, they hopefully will have a little more interest today. And, I can use examples they wrote down as I talk about queries today, so we'll have a connection (like the example above where they queries if the restaurant includes a playground... well, that's not a field so that's not a possible query on this data).

The lesson here? Don't be afraid to just try something new because what you are doing isn't working or is boring or just isn't cutting it by your standards. Sometimes, you will stumble on something that gets the entire class moving and involved. Oh, and GET OUT OF THAT TEXTBOOK! Find ways to pull them together or get them to share. 

Happy Wednesday, friends!

Team Try 1 in Computer Class #cooplearning #busedu

Today was a fun Friday in Photoshop. I decided to do a cooperative learning activity--which I termed "Team Try"--since we just learned how to download brushes from websites yesterday and I wanted to get them to do a little exploring and review. So, I created a handout and they worked in pairs to complete it. Seriously, there was 100% student engagement for this. It went beautifully. If you teach Photoshop, you can check it out. It's nothing fancy (the end results is actually quite ugly) but it reviews concepts that we needed to cover.

My rule was that they had to take turns doing the handout. So, partner 1 reads the instruction (partner reading has to stand and cannot pull up a chair... because I guess I'm a control freak). Partner 2 sits and does the instruction. The first partner can assist (verbally, point, etc.) but cannot touch the mouse to help. Then, once that instruction is complete, they switch spots. So, there was lots of moving around.

I wasn't completely sure what I wanted to do with my "leftover" person (I had an odd number in both hours today). So, that person had to "volunteer as Tribute" (I'm so hip). The Tribute would also have a copy of the exercise and could communicate with me at any time. No one else could communicate with me or with other groups--only the Tribute. So, I did explain this and took volunteers both hours (and had no problems getting someone to volunteer...they got candy). 

It honestly went better than planned. Students worked well together to accomplish a task and my roamer (the Tribute) who went around asking to help or provided feedback felt important. I made them all give him/her a hand at the end of the class period.

Did every group finish? No. Did I take a grade? No. Did people sit around and not work? Um... no! They were right in there trying to do the activity.

Don't be afraid to try this sort of thing in a technology class. It's so easy to just open the book and "do the stuff" in a computer class. I actually don't use real books in my computer classes (most of them) because I feel a system where I lead works better than a book. But, if you haven't tried something like this, I strongly encourage it for ANY computer class. 

Activity Link (DOCX)-- https://onedrive.live.com/redir?page=view&resid=E10A71E92D0A4394!7140&authkey=!AN-BAWu3_mjF7C4

SWIM Peer Review Technique and Musical Computers

This Spring, I concocted a "different" peer review technique for use in the classroom. You could adapt this for various needs (writing assignments, artwork, etc.) but as I teach in a computer lab and most of my student work is projects (publishing/graphics projects, videos, podcasts, etc.), my method is mostly "post-it" notes, work displayed on computer monitors, and some music jamming in the background (more about that in a minute). However, I have considered also doing this technique with peer review online, such as through sharing a Google Doc (if a writing assignment) or making a comment on a Google Slides project.

My inspiration was, honestly, I wanted an acronym. And, I thought, what peer review "look fors" do I want? I give scoring guides that are specific and I have given peer review sheets that students fill out, but generally, those peer reviews are done the day the project is due (beginning of hour) with the intention that students then alter their work based on the feedback. What tends to happen, though, is students are afraid they might not finish and it becomes an afterthought and not a way to help them improve before submitting it for grading.

So, as a business teacher, SWOT analysis is something we teach with businesses (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) so I pulled the first two letters from that. And, I had to think of a term I could come up with that was easy to remember. Thus, SWIM was born!

I feel like this technique can be done at any point in the project process. The general steps, for me, are as follows:

• Assign students a letter (randomly, spell through the room, or by row). So, my Row 1 might be assigned S, Row 2 would be W, and so on.
• Have all students get out the work to be checked and put it on top of the desk or on the computer monitor. If there is a scoring guide, the scoring guide should be out as well. 
• Then, it works like musical chairs. I will play music and students are to find an open computer that isn't immediately to the left or right of their current spot, sit quickly when music stops, and assess using their assigned letter. So, the S people will be looking for "strengths" in the student work (what looks best, what's professional, what's done well). The W kiddos are be identifying "weaknesses" or areas of critical concern (areas that "Mrs. Skinner" might think could be done better, things that do not look professional enough, something that is confusing/unclear). The I folks will come up with "ideas" based on what they see and ideas that might make it even better. Maybe they like what they see but have an idea that might be a cool change that would elevate the overall piece. For a flyer, for example, they might suggest a thicker font because it would be easier to read. Or, maybe there is a little bit of white space on one side and a graphic might look good in that corner. Finally the "M" students will evaluate specifically based on the scoring guide, identifying any items that are missing and are required. 
• After students identify the assigned "look for", they write down the suggestions--on a Post-it note or a sheet of paper (or online, a comment)--and leave it at the desk (when we do Post-its, we stick it on the monitor). They must include their initials. And, they know that I expect them to be positive or constructive. No mean comments ("this sucks" or "that looks like crap" isn't a suitable piece of feedback...). "Consider a thicker font and check spelling on the title" is better than "the font is ugly and you can't spell." 
• When the music starts, they get up and quickly move again. We do about 10-12 minutes of peer review time. If you were doing something that involved reading paragraphs or a paper, you might need to allot more time. Or, you could get into a group of 4 and assign each student a letter and they trade back and forth and just work within the group of 4. But, I teach in a lab and it's good for them to get up and move around. 

What do you think? Is this something you might try?  Let me know @tonyaskinner and best of luck!