Wrapping Up

There has been some exciting occurs in this last week of working on the project. Some of the highlights include creating great graphs, some students not working, some students doing all the work, some teams working well together and the cafeteria already making changes.  

On last Thursday, many of the teams kept getting off task. I think it was a mixture of summer fever and some confusion on how to create graphs. Although I taught how to do graphs in class, I do not have all of the students on the teams. This resulted in some teams not having anyone who knew what to do. I thought a handout that showed step by step would work but that was not good. Also, I was the only teacher in the team that knew excel. Despite these kinks, there were some groups who made some headway and got their five graphs created.

The cafeteria manager started to be very interested in what suggestions from the students. I supplied her with the graphs of all the responses of all the school. Students started reporting this week changes in the cafeteria menu for the better. This was GREAT news. The students actually got to see that what they do can make a difference. They do have a voice that the world needs to hear. 

The Tuesday project meeting was the best. I wrote suggestions on all the teams that had graphs so they can make changes. Students really got into the updates to graphs. To teams in particular do a great job changing the layout. I will post those images on Friday. The best thing about it all is that no one taught them how to change it. I helped the figure out the right way to click and they took it and ran. This was the highlight of the entire project to me. Getting students to understand and use technology for themselves and by themselves.

Today, we talked as a team about what we need to do as a wrap up. I will be producing a document for the students to see their grades on all the turned in assignments at this point. We will also make sure the students know not to just copy and paste the example business proposal. I will also print all the items from the different teams to place in a binder. 

We started to also discuss what went well and what we need to work on. The great thing about it all is we have a record through wikispaces to build upon. DeAnn mentioned how all the team has to be trained on the technology the students use before we have the students use it. I am going to create a form for all of us to fill out to come up with more items we need to do as an improvement and what went well. Overall, the teachers admitted this was a little difficult since they never seen a project before so they spectated on occasion. I saw this as  need for me to be able to create a better picture for others. Despite this issue, they are all loving the idea of project based learning and anxious to do it again!

Example Documents

I did not go to school today due to my need to work on my final project for my masters. DeAnn reported "We are still alive, just barely..without you. The kids did pretty well in the library....and most importantly the library was glad we left everything in good shape! We did get some printed finished menus and some started on the business proposal."

I got up early to complete the example document for the students to follow. I posted it on wikispaces. I also planned to contact the district's nutrition manager who creates the school menu but Master's work won. I also reflected on how it would have been great to get the chef and a co-op speaker as we brainstormed. We will have to make sure that is apart of the process next year.

Well, more tomorrow.

Great Pictures

There was a lot of activity between the three classrooms the students worked in for their project. Student pictures are now uploaded on flicker. Check it out at this address: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24773120@N06/?saved=1

Rolling On

Students worked diligently today on their menus and their lab report. I forgot the lab report was due on Thursday so students in my class did not work on that element. DeAnn agreed to allow them to work till Tuesday.

I took lots of pictures of the students working and am working on putting it on a flicker page. I will create another post when this and the movie of the launch is complete.

Starting To See Progress

The students worked project as scheduled in the last two class periods. The checklist is working to help the students know what they are supposed to do. We were also on one accord as a teaching team. A new student to our team found a great website to use for the project "by accident". I love it when that happens. Other teams were really getting into the creation of the menu and finding foods of other cultures. I am the tech resource teacher on the team so students came in and out of my room asking for help on creating the menu and some asked for help on search as well as if a particular food would be resonable to create in the cafeteria. From this point on the students will be recording all of their research and creating their products on the computer.

I had the awesome task of figuring out a new piece of software. I know I mentioned in a previous blog entry that I was deciding between using InspireData and an online survey. Well, the online surveys were not going to work. All of them were only free for the first 100 responses. After 100 you would have to pay. Also they did not give the students the opportunity to create the graphs. They created the graph of the results. Therefore, I decided to figure out how to use InspireData's new feature of an online survey.

Thanks to this blog, the product manager of the product contacted me about a week ago. Thanks to his help, I was able to better find the information that will help me create a survey that meets the types of questions I wanted the students to ask. I just finished creating the students survey and it was really easy. I did find out it would be important to write down the survey id and owner id it gives you when you go to publish the survey so that you can close the survey later. I am going to have to contact the product manager and see if it is a way to cancel the surveys I created by accident :).

So far it looks like it will be a great tool. The only downside is the students have the ability to retake the survey. I had to communicate to the english department to make sure the students do not take the survey twice and skew the numbers. The good news is the product manager listened to me about that being a great thing to turn off and it will be an option in the next release. I can't wait to see some of the preliminary results on Friday. I will be going through the interpretation of the data with the students next week. If you are intested in more information about InspireData, you can get it from www.inspiration.com.

Tomorrow we will be on a field trip. There are some students who are staying behind and will probably work some on the project. I will be checking with DeAnn(science) to see what occurs to report.

Handling the Bumps in the Road

I didn't get a chance to look up suggestions too heavily. I did see that the checklist will be a great way to help the students and also to have a meeting to clarify again with the teachers.

We met briefly on Monday and again our meeting almost ran away from the focus with having to deal with a student issue. However, we were able to modify the checklist I came up with and to create an example final product for the students to review. We still as a team need to discuss what the expectations are going forward. I had many students mentioned how Ben (English) told them something different to do for the project.

To help remedy this problem as well as to not have each teacher have to be that in depth with the knowledge of other subjects, I suggested the students go back to the teacher. They have the ability to go to different rooms for questions. I reminded them for the lab work go to DeAnn (science) and for graphs come to me. I didn't say this in the nicest way so I will have to apologize to my students as well. The end of the year antics of students is increasing. I found myself losing patience with the students as we attempted to go through the project.

Today, I worked with the students with the questions they created for the school survey. The original questions submitted by the students were a mixture of good and bad. As a learning exercise, each class discussed how to make questions better and voted what questions to keep. Although the goal of learning how to revise and improve decision making was great, I don't think it was achieved with the method chosen. I chose to do it as a class. Many students tuned out and some were not active in the voting process. Next time, I will divide them into groups and have them edit them in the small groups first. I will then have them do it as an entire class.

To see the students' original question, revised question and final survey questions, check out teamcproject.wikispaces.com under management section.

So Much To Review

I can not believe it has been over a week since I last updated everyone on the project. The two days before the launch and the days since the launch have flown by. There is so much to tell. I hope that I will get everything in this post and try to write everyday instead of waiting.

The two days before the launch was a little hectic. The team meet the Wednesday before the launch but the meeting was derailed by a discussion of a student. I had to opt to try and complete the planning via email. This is not the best way since one of the team members still struggle with using technology. The good news the person is really wanting to learn and get better. I made a mental note to make sure we have a formal business meeting for student issues and designated meetings for the project planning next year.

Via email we ironed out the small details of managing the project. In the middle of the night on Wednesday, April 23rd, I realized the best way to have the students work on the project is to not have normal classes during the last two periods of the day on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This will allow the students some time during the day to work but also an ability to keep working after school without breaking stride. Since there were 20 teams, there could also be five teams in each room. Everyone on the team agreed with the plan and we were ready to launch.

The launch on Friday, April 25th had very few bumps in the road. I filmed the launch so I will be able to edit and post it soon. Each teacher had a particular part to say and everyone had their script to follow (see the video at the end or PDF on the wiki). The majority of the students really were interested in the project and the flow of the presentation was flawless. The bumps included many of the students not trying a lot of the healthy foods, many of them still did not have a picture of what exactly they were to do in the project and some of the slacker students were still not interested in the project even though they complain about the cafeteria. In reflection, one of the team mates suggested we do a poll of the students interest before the next project.

Some of the main management problems that have occurred since the project is students complained about their teams. We had to emphasize they could not change teams but they could boot people off the team via the statements in their team contract. Many of the students still did not get that they had the opportunity to change the cafeteria. They also didn't understand what products we wanted. This opened us up to discovering we all did not have a proper perspective on each other's expectations. At our next team meeting, we discussed what each other was expecting the students to produce and decided to create a dummy example for the students to follow.

Many of the confusion started to clear once we got on the same page and created more expectations of what needs to be taught formally in our classrooms. I also realized before the launch that there needs to be a place for the students to get information and so I updated teamcproject.wikispaces.com to include a student info tab. Once we actually were clear on expectations, this site became a great resource for the students.

The greatest event occurred yesterday during the interview session with the cafeteria manager and the principal. The students truly started to see the realness of the project and to see what is possible in the school. As instructor's we became even better aid today to show how the students should not do certain things in their recommendations because it would not be approved by the principal. We also discovered how much power the student and their parent have on the food supplier for the school.

Upon reflection of our launch and the first week following the launch, I have discovered the following items will keep our project on the road to success:

• Each teacher needs to be informed of what will be taught in regard to the project for that week
• Have a PowerPoint slide every Tuesday and Thursday of the due dates to be displayed while students are working
• A harsher punishment for students who do not work in their teams. Currently, it is just receiving a zero
• Have each team explain back to the instructor what their goals are for that day so that we know they understand what they are doing
  

I will be writing again tomorrow. I promise :)

Writing Again Soon

The last meeting got off track with having to deal with an IEP issue of a particular student. We didn't get much done in the meeting and I worked most of Wednesday and Thursday talking with each teacher individually and preparing for the launch on Friday.

I am still busy trying to get ready so I will write a lot this weekend.

Talk to you again soon!

Counting Down

We are meeting twice this week to work out any small details to the project. Everyone is getting excited about the project. Today's meeting was focused on the food, lesson plan for Friday's launch and any last minute preparation items.

The first item on the agenda was discussing test questions. This is a new aspect to the project brought about by me. Many of our students are not performing at grade level. Even with different types of instruction (cooperative learning, lecture, hands-on activities) the students still do not retain knowledge. I think project-based learning may be the solution for these type of students. To prove my belief, I decided to make this a small research project. We will have the students complete a pre-test with two to three questions from each subject area. Some of the questions may be something they are familiar with and others may be something they will discover through the project based upon the standards we want them to learn. The students will also complete a post-test and a survey upon completion of the project. Small interviews will be conducted targeting specifically 10 of the lowest performing students and 10 of the highest throughout the project. All of this will help aid if project-based learning is the best strategy for lowest performing students.

Explaining my purpose in an email, the teachers were to email or hand me their questions. At the meeting, DeAnn (science) was the only one who had completed the questions. I was still debating on two questions. Everyone has to submit them by tomorrow's meeting. DeAnn always gets things done early and we love her for that quality. She inspired me to get my grades posted five days in advance.

The next item on the agenda was final details to the launch on Friday. The first detail was food to be served. Although, I thought the options was going to be one per culture, the conversation really took off. The aim of the tasting is for the food to be healthy items but relevant to the culture of the student population. By the end of the discussion, the list included fried tofu, edemme, guacamole with chips, brown rice, baby carrots and celery, bread and tabule. There might also be some crackers thrown in there thanks to Mary's purchase over the weekend. All of us are going to chip in on the purchase of items and preparation before the event.

Other last minute details for the launch included not having paper on the tables to conserve paper. I will be making the signs and strips letting each student know what team they are on. I will also get the projector and laptop from the instructional facilitators that morning and place in the library so that it can be easily accessed that afternoon. Permission had been granted for the use of the cafeteria for the entire timeblock by the principal. I am going to check to see if Ben can go down to the cafeteria after timeblock 3 on Thursday and make sure the doors will be open and the first few tables will be available.

The last part of the meeting was the review of the outline of the lesson plan. Only DeAnn got a chance to review it early. She didn't see any changes that needed to be made. During the meeting, everyone had a chance to view and everyone thought it was a great format. We confirmed that all of the rubrics will be given at the launch but only one per team. We agreed that contract among students will be started at the launch but completed the following week. Students will end the project by submitting their questions for the interview with the principal and cafeteria manager.

Tomorrow's meeting will focus on the details of combining classes and final formation of a time line. This project is getting more and more exciting by the minute!

Confirming-April 16th Meeting

This meeting focused on confirming dates of interviews and locations as well as launching scenario and management of process. Interviews with cafeteria manager and principal will be April 30th in the school's little theater at 1:30 p.m. We discussed the possibility of having a speaker from the local co-op organization and a chef from a local culinary school. Deann with follow up with the co-op while I contact the culinary school.

Everyone agreed with my launch idea presented in the last meeting. More details to the organization of the launch was completed. As suggested in the Reinventing Project Based Learning book, we will have students complete their own contract. We will also look at preassigned tables of the teams and having food tasting at the table. We are also looking at getting a copy of the movie "Super-size me" and show a snippet.

We started an initial planning of what day each week we will have joint classes to work on the project. Deann and I will pair up first week in my room. The students will review not only their process but also the collection of data for charts. Debra and I will also pair up the following week for the survey results. Our next meeting will focus on the remaining weeks and any other tweaking of the process. Right now, our management process is more of an outline. We will firm up the details at the next meeting and monitor it during the project.

Really Busy

I am so sorry about the delay in updating the website. We have had two meetings since my last post. We are also started testing since my last post. I hope to update the website tomorrow with all the details. The actual launch of the project is next Friday (April 25th). I will be taking pictures to view of how the launch turned out.

Please be patient for an update tomorrow.

Products Confirmed

We are almost at the end of our planning. In our last meeting, we clarified the actual products we will grade. A couple of the products still lack detail as to what will actually be graded but team mates were assigned the products to produce a rubric by Friday.

There will be a total five assessments. We will assess their research/interview skills. The teacher responsible for the rubrics for this category is the science teacher, DeAnn. Survey is another assessment with a rubric created by Debra (social studies) and myself. A chart will also be graded and rubric created by me. The remaining products are a menu and a proposal. Mary and Ben will grade and create a rubric for those products. Originally, we were looking to do a presentation but it was replaced by just a proposal due to the time needed to present and the lack of time to have all the teams present.

Our next meeting is tomorrow, we are going to focus on the nuts and bolts of the project. This includes when the project will start and end. How we will present the project to students as well as when we will have to teach specific items in the classroom. The most tasking part of the next meeting is dividing the groups into teams.

During this meeting, I presented the idea of incorporating the upper class with freshman. Currently, everyone on the team (but myself) teaches at least one upper level course. I thought it might be helpful for the freshman's work ethic development to be increased because of an upper class person being on the team. This will be ironed out at the meeting.

I am getting more and more excited about the project. I can't wait for the actual launch to see how well our project idea will be received by the students. The principal agreed to be interviewed by the students and review the proposals for consideration. This will really lend weight to the project.

Brainstorming Meeting

The first day of planning the project is now complete. It was a great session and I am excited about continuing our brainstorming tomorrow. Four out of the five members of the team was able to meet and everyone was ready to discuss the project.

We opened up with an activity to help us think about what it is like to work in a group. We shared memories of a group experience including what worked well in the group and what could be improved. This is an exercise I learned from a class I am currently taking entitled "Managing the Classroom Environment". Completing warm-up activities helps to connect members as well as provide a basis for the task to complete. This activity lead us into things we need to remember as we work through the planning process.

We reviewed the standards in each of our subject areas that are what we feel all students really need to remember. This lead us to the brainstorming of where in real life do we see the standards we are asking the students to know. Due to the warm-up activity and shorten time to meet (30 minutes), we only got a small start on the brainstorming session.

This portion of the session was the greatest learning experience for me. I have never worked with other teachers to coordinate a project. I know all teachers have a different view of what a project is but we also have different methods for creating our projects. It was great to see multiple views of a team as well as the assistance of people.

To get into the brainstorming session, I asked the teachers to think where in real life do their standards exist. This is a question the book "Reinventing Project-Based Learning: Your Field Guide to Real-World Projects in the Digital Age" recommends to help think of project ideas and also a suggestion by Buck Institutes manual. It is a method I have used over the last year and a half to plan projects but found it hard to explain how to do.

As we started to work on brainstorming, we went by each subject. For English we discussed how there is nothing in life that doesn't relate to the standards. Students will complete the standards at the beginning through research or writing a proposal or just summarizing their thoughts as well. For science, we discussed the wastefulness of oil. This was when the conversation was of the most learning experience for me.

Deann, the science teacher, expressed how she really didn't understand what we were brainstorming. She related her experience to when she plans she comes up with a theme. I explained how a project can be a part of a theme but the greater aspect of a project answering a problem that doesn't have a necessary right or wrong answer. To create it the problem, it is helpful to think of problems in real life. I shared my experience at a previous job where I had a problem with a customer's telephone service. My solution to their problem required various knowledge elements, i.e. the things we want our students to know, but it was in essence solving a problem.

This example didn't help her that much. However, teammate, Debra helped by relating the process to hypothesis and then execution. She also explained a project she did with students and how she wanted to do one where the students create travel brochures. I exclaimed as I explained how the book gives the same example. I made copies of the pages for her and it became a discussion we continued throughout the day. I thanked Debra for her analogy and shared how happy I was to again work as a group.

We wrapped up the discussion by me explaining how a project is very front end loaded with us creating a question, assessments/deadlines and products. Ben also offered to take a poll of the students interest to see if an idea of a project will surface from the students.

When we work on brainstorming tomorrow, I will help the group understand the process by giving an example. We will then spend the majority of the time narrowing our ideas to one specific topic that will also lead us to think of all the products we want the students to produce for assessment. On Wednesday, we should be able to complete our project sketch and asset map.

Below is a video of the Keynote presentation we went through as a group: