#SBL – Infinitely Teaching

Choose Your Own Adventure Project with Google Forms

September 20, 2015April 22, 2020 Mandi

You know when you find a project and you think, “This could be a fun project that my students could benefit from”, and then you get the results from your students and it was a flop? Well this isn’t that type of project. I was blown away by some of the stories my students created. I don’t have all of them listed below because they have to correct their mistakes before I will publish them, but they can keep correcting until it’s ready for the public eye. Check back, I’ll add more as they become available.

I can’t take all the credit for this project. The original idea came from @jmattmiller in his book Ditch That Textbook. I did make the scoring guide and the planning sheet to help students create this. Matt also has a video on his site that would be a good resource also.

Now Matt teaches Spanish and I teach Math, but the basic idea of Choose Your Own Adventure is present and could be adapted for any content area. My students had to have 5 equations, a good story line, images, & explanations of misconceptions if a player choose the wrong answer. We started by writing the story on the planning pages. It’s a lot easer to type this into Google Forms if you already have your story and equations in place on the planning page. I also included instructions about how to enter the information into forms on the back of the planning pages.

My scoring guide is based on our SBL. Our non-math standards include Quality of Work, Completeness of Work and Timeliness, basic skills an employer would want. We also assess based on our Math standards from our curriculum. You may take my scoring guide and adjust it to fit your curriculum.

I have the Docs set up to make a copy when you click on them.

Planning Page

Scoring Guide

Now for some awesomeness. (Disclaimer – some didn’t follow copyright and snagged images from Google. We did talk about this but some chose the easier path)

Journey to Be A Mage (all images drawn by student)

Treasure Map (in the Spirit of TLAP – @burgessdave would love this one)

SBL

Standards Based Learning – Beginning the year

September 8, 2015September 8, 2015 Mandi

After much preparation, we began the year with SBL. I created a detailed newsletter using Piktochart, then recorded a video as I discussed how SBL will work in my classroom so parents could hear instead of just read it. We set up our gradebook with standards, flipped our classroom, designed projects to assist learning, gave choices in the learning process & created awesome data tracking (Alice Keeler to the rescue) for ourselves and for the students. Then we gave our first assessment. OUCH! Students freaked out, parents freaked out, teachers stressed out… “How can I raise my grade?” “What can I do to get an A?”

We are trying to make parents and students understand that the scores aren’t permanent. We are teaching on mastery ALL SEMESTER LONG. They will have many opportunities to work on skills they are struggling with. We have time to work 1:1 with students within the class day. We are trying to convince them this is a good thing. Our next assessment is this week. I hope students and parents will see the scores replaced with higher marks as their students begin to master the content.

It’s been a rocky start, but I’m still very excited SBL. I think the student and parent focus will change to learning and not just “doing” as they begin to see the value of this process. Until then, I have more emails to return…

ramblings

Teach them to Learn

July 27, 2015July 27, 2015 Mandi

My focus for this school year will not be on testing, or homework, or even data teams, it will be on LEARNING.

I’ve been reading Ditch that Textbook and Teach Like a Pirate this summer, as well as learning from my PLN on Twitter, Voxer and EdCamps. All of these have reinforced the decision I made at the end of school last year to DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY! I will continue with Standards Based Grading but I like the phrase Standards Based Learning better. I will also be providing videos like a flipped classroom would so I can focus on projects and individualized learning in the classroom. I won’t be assigning homework every night, but I will provide outside practice for those who need it. I want students to learn in the way that best suits them. I don’t know how this will work but I’m excited to give it a try. The most important change will be directing the focus on learning and not on a grade. I want to eliminate the question, “What can I do to raise my grade?” I want them to ask, “What can I do to learn?” I can’t wait to have a classroom with students in control of their learning and a desire to be there. I hope my inner Pirate comes out!