Motivation in the Classroom

Having students who are motivated in the class to learn and complete projects are always a goal of mine and probably many teachers. I’m constantly trying to increase motivation for students and realize that this will never be 100% perfect for all of my students, but it is something that I can strive to work on and continuously improve!

There are many different types of motivation. The graphic below does a great job of visualizing this in the Continuum of Motivation.

For myself personally, as a student, I was most of time motivated socially and achievement based. I wanted to please the teacher, and receive a good grade in the class. As a teacher now, I try to get students to be motivated by extrinsically, but intrinsically.

For middle school students, I think social motivators are very common. Kids want to fit in and be liked by their peers. I have been guilty of also using this in my class as a form of competition for students and classes. Whether it’s a review game that puts the class against one another, it seems to help my students want to study more. When it comes to little things like that I don’t feel it entirely bad or wrong to do. However, if my goal is to have student motivated to learn and grow as individuals because they value that education, I should try and change my mindset on this.

Genius Hour - Researching Begins!

For my summer grad class, we have a Genius Hour Project which is an opportunity for us to research, plan, and implement any project of our choosing. This fit very well with my goals for next school year, as it has given me the perfect chance to plan out a new Genius Hour course I will start this fall. This GH class will be an elective class for any 6th grade students and will last one semester. The class will meet every other day and will be 45 minutes. Below are my first steps of planning out the project.

(Link to GH Planning Template and Goal Sheet)

Now it’s time for some research! Here is some of the great information I found out so far about Genius Hour classes.

I was lucky enough to connect with some great experts via Twitter like @JoyKirr who shared me a Genius Hour Live Binder (https://t.co/rmH6P9tf8Q) with several different resources from a wide variety of teachers who had created GH classes or projects. The first link I went to was a Standards-Based Genius Hour (http://www.teachergoals.org/genius-hour.html). This was a great blog post that went through how to first spark excitement from students, then have them create their Driving Questions, which is similar to project-based learning. The main idea behind this style Genius Hour was that they took their core subject standards and had students focus their genius hour project around a simplified version of that standard. What is unique with my course, is that I have the freedom to not have any standards, but will incorporate the ISTE standards found here (http://www.iste.org/standards/standards/standards-for-students). One final take away I had from this source was that the teacher did not allow any poster presentations, powerpoints, or any other traditional projects. This is a great way to incorporate some of the digital literacy skills.

Photochart: http://geniushour.wikispaces.com/

Another great tip - Stayed organized and create a tracking system of student-teacher feedback!

Other great information I collected from the Genius Hour Live Binder.

Genius Hour Fair - http://www.geniushourfair.com/8-12yoprojects

• I love this idea and believe I can make it happen for my first semester class. All submissions are due September 30th for the 2016 fair. This might be a nice first half of the semester project.
• This site also shared a great resource for students, “Googleable vs Non-Googleable” questions. (Link: http://notosh.com/lab/googleable-vs-non-googleable-questions/)

Quarter 4 Genius Hour - http://scholarsrm239.weebly.com/genius-hour-celebrations

This was another awesome website that shared many useful tips and their experience with having students focus an entire quarter on one genius hour project. Below were my take-aways:

• Proposals - students needed to create a pitch under 30 seconds and explain why they wanted to do their GH project and sell it to the audience.
• End Product - the result of the genius hour needed to be a product of some sort, whether it was a book, a new invention, or a documentary. The teacher felt this would help motivate students to spend time moving from the idea phase to producing phase nicely.
• Blog - Students blogged their progress weekly.
• Final Presentation - At end of class, students gave a 5 minute presentation to community, teachers, and parents) with parent permission.
• Assessment - This was directly taken from the teacher’s blog (Rubric Here).
• The Proposal (Is the proposal on-time, and does it address the required questions appropriately?)
• The Blog (Does the post address the required topic? Do you post each week?)
• The Product (Did you successfully move from idea phase to production phase, and do you have something to show at the end of the year?)
• Productivity (Are you spending your Genius Hour time by actively and passionately working on your project? If not, we need to quickly adjust the project so you are working on something that is intrinsically motivating. This is less objective, but if I see students not being productive, I will intervene.)
• Final Presentation (Does your presentation meet all of the required elements? There will be a rubric - ask for it two weeks before you present.)

All of the above are very very helpful for me and I will use them to shape my course. Seeing all of the wonderful examples of excited and empowered students really reinforces the reason behind create this opportunity for students and I’m looking forward to the next phase - planning!

Final Reflection on Connection

Over the past two months, I have learned a lot about what it means to be "connected" in the professional and educational world. All from creating a PLN, to connected projects in school, I know I will continue to work towards some of my professional learning goals in regards to this topic.

After completing a larger project that incorporated connection for the students, there were a few points that I can take away from the experience. The first, and one of the most important aspects I learned from student survey results, was that my class does see the value in connected to a global audience in school. I believe this is the key to creating new projects that result in authentic work. Students need to see that the work they put out there is being viewed as important enough for others to see. Having a real audience gives students purpose for this project and increases the stakes for their final products.

Another take-away I have from this global learning project, is to incorporate blogs, but really make a purpose for them. I added in blogs because I wanted students to reflect and have their reflections public, but I don't think I voiced the importance of the blogs or how to successfully write a blog post before I assigned them. In the future, I will do this and also have more interaction from the students in class, and perhaps experiment with bringing in expert feedback/input into student blog posts.

Connecting to global experts can be challenge. If I am going to continue to successfully create projects like this past one, I need to really know who I want my students to reach out and how they will be expected to interact or use the feedback. For this first trial run, I had students find the experts and reach out to them, after this experience, I now know that again, I will have to take time to teach the process of reaching or just provide some experts.

Overall, I enjoyed the extra level of connectedness within this project. I feel the students stepped up to the challenge and the end result were some really unique and creative products. I will continue to create opportunities for connection in my classroom and professional career!

Student Survey Results on Global Connection within Enrichment Project

My students were all asked to evaluate how "connected" they felt they were within this project. To increase a global connection, I asked all groups to reach out to one global expert. I left the type of expert out, but I did give them a few examples of good people to contact. I wanted students to find out more about their animal, and different examples of enrichment. Because this was a zoo and wild animal centered enrichment toy design project, many of the students decided to reach out to the Minnesota Zoo. However, they had a difficult time getting into contact with anyone.

Other students had success when they emailed specific people. One group, who had the cougar as a client, emailed an in-state, Wild Cat Sanctuary, and received a great email full of information about cougars in general and how they enrich the cats. The group that received the input from this organization was very excited to hear back, and used the information to their advantage.

Below are the results from the student survey.

The first question I asked students centered around blogging. I had never required students to blog during a project, but I did like the way it required students to reflect during the design process. Based on the survey results, about 63% of my class agreed with me.

Next up, I asked how many students heard feedback from their experts, either global or local. Local experts being the Animal Caretakers from Zollman Zoo at Oxbow Park, who we worked with for this project. Then below this, I asked who they reached out to for a global expert, and many answered with Zoo experts or other animal experts.

After asking about specifics, I wanted to know whether 7th grade students see the value in reaching out to a global network. And I was very happy to see that they do see this as an important aspect in school today! Lastly, I was curious if students would have liked an extra dose of social media added into the project, which surprisingly, most said no.

Final Prototype Test Day at Oxbow

On Monday, March 21st my class of seventh grade students and I all headed out to Zollman Zoo. The projects that the students had created (as mentioned in previous posts) were the result of creativity, hard work, and excitement. Now, it was the day to go back out to the zoo and test out their enrichment toys with the animals.

It was a great trip! Below are some pictures and videos with students setting up the toys in the exhibits and results from some of the animals.

 

All of the students had a blast at the zoo. The only complaint I received was that they wished they could have stayed longer. Having a local connection as valuable as this is something I intend to use as long as they are willing to let us! Adding an extra connection to this project, via student blog posts, and reaching out to global experts, was a positive that I saw in the overall quality of the enrichment toys produced with this class. 

Connection is definitely something I will continue to work on and use in my future projects!

Connected Project Update

My students have been working very hard this past week. As posted in earlier blogs, my 7th grade STEM class is completing an Enrichment Design Project. This project is one of my favorites because of the level of engagement from the students and how we have been able to work with our local nature center/zoo at Oxbow Park.

So, last week Thursday, my student visited the zoo and made their primary observations. On Friday, an Animal Caretaker came into the classroom and gave the class a run down of animal enrichment, the specific animal characteristics and preferences when it comes to designing toys for them. At this point, I hadn't even been able to really get into too much detail about the project with students. I was worried about this, because I didn't know if they would ask the right questions to the Animal Caretaker when she came in. However, I found out that the kids had no problems finding and thinking of questions to ask her. It always amazing me the creativity they demonstrate!

Monday was when I really gave in-depth directions for what I was expecting from students for the project. I didn't want to give away any limiting instructions on their designs, but I just let them know that it had to be (1) safe, and (2) they needed to show some sort of reasoning behind their design.

Then, I started to explain how I wanted students to connect outside of our local community. Each team, consisting of 3-4 students was required to write three blog posts throughout the project and include a final reflection. I've never had my students blog before, so I wasn't sure how much they would write, so I told them they had to write at least one paragraph per post. Below are some example of the posts I received. In the future, I will make sure students read other classmates' posts and respond.

The second added piece of "connectedness" I added to the project, was that I wanted students to reach out to global experts.

Again, never having done this before, I was a little concerned who they might hear back from. So, I told them they didn't need to worry about hearing back from the experts, but I wanted to see evidence that they tried to reach out.. Then I went into a little bit about email etiquette and what to expect.

Right away, I had one team send an email to a reporter who had written about Como Zoo and heard back. I had many students reach out to the MN Zoo and also some other zoos around the country. It will be interesting to see who hears back from their contacts.

Finally, on this past Friday, the students presented their prototypes to another Oxbow Animal Caretaker. I was very impressed by the students and their products. I think they were proud of them as well. Some of their "crazy" ideas on paper, actually became a reality because they were motivated and determined to create them!


 


This upcoming Monday, we will head back to the zoo to give the toys to the animals and see how they react!

Start of Global Learning Opportunity

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that my 7th grade students would soon be starting an exciting Animal Enrichment Project. We have now started the project and it is going very well so far. One of the things that I really enjoy about this project is that the students have an opportunity to visit a local part of their town, that is an amazing resource to have so close to school.

Even though the project has just started, I am already thinking about how I can improve parts of the project for the future. The first thing I would like to change is the amount of time I have! We just got a 3D Printer for our middle school, and of course, I wanted to give the students a mini project where they would have the opportunity to use the printer. However, this cut into my short 9 week time span that I have with my classes. So, on Thursday this past week, my students and I traveled down to Zollman Zoo for day one of the project.

The day before, I had briefly told them about the project, assigned teams, and had them select specific animals to design for. I promised my class I would provide them with more details as the project progressed, but that their main goal for this mini field trip was to simply observe the animals, take pictures and videos of their habitats, and start noticing some enrichment toys they already had in their exhibits. Because we only had one class hour for the trip, we ended up having about 15 minutes of usable time at the zoo, which, for this first trip - was plenty of time.

(Pictured: Some students observing two otters in their exhibits.)

The next day, Friday, I had one of the expert local animal caretakers from Oxbow come into to school, and graciously, present some important information to the students. All of the kids were very engaged and excited about what our guest speaker was saying and it was awesome to hear students ask question after question about their animal's interests, food preferences, senses, and more.

Now that the preliminary parts of the project are complete, the students have about one week to (a) work through the design process, (b) reach out to global experts, and finally, build their prototype before presenting to another animal caretaker from Oxbow on Friday.

On Monday, my plan is to slow the class down a little bit and explain some of the other details of the project. We will be keeping a class blog, where I am asking each group to write three short posts about their project.

More information to come, but from what I have seen so far, I think this class will create some awesome enrichment toys!