Is That A Right?

July 16, 2020June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Don’t get excited – I’m not diving into current events or anything. (I’m far too demure for such things.) In fact, I’m intentionally avoiding the subject at the moment because any effort I make to write rationally about what we’ve become ends up as a spittle-spewing, obscenity-laden rant and, worse, totally off-brand. Those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook, where I’ve lost even the veneer of professionalism or decency towards my fellow man, can no doubt verify this assertion.

Instead, I’d like to share two very simple things you may find useful. Or, you may not. You may find yourself a little bit sad for me if these are my best new cutting-edge distance learning ideas at the moment. Either way, I’m giddy enough for both of us.

“Is That A Right?” is the name of an activity I’ve done with American Government and American History classes for years, and which I’m considering trying “virtually” this fall if circumstances lead us down that path.

It’s not even an overly innovative lesson. It’s really just a PowerPoint presentation with a series of descriptions of potential “rights” as per the U.S. Constitution. Students vote ‘Yes’ if they believe whatever’s on the slide is a protected right and ‘No’ if they don’t, and we discuss it a bit (“Tasha, why do you think so?” or “So, Garrett… would you still say that’s a right if we change the wording to what Tasha said?” You guys know how discussions work.) The next slide tells us the “right” answer, often with disclaimers about how it’s actually a bit more complicated than that – because it’s almost always a bit more complicated than that. Then we go to the next one.

I recently converted the most recent version of this presentation into Google Slides. You can access it in its entirety right here. If it’s something you’d like to use, all you have to do is make a copy (File, Make a Copy…) and it’s yours. Once you’ve copied it, you can change prompts, explanations, images, etc., just like with PowerPoint.

So how could we do this if we’re not in the same place?

I’ve had the privilege of co-teaching several workshops with an amazing history teacher from the Houston area named Barrett Doke. He’s one of those guys that loves technology, but always as a tool for putting more of the learning into the hands of the students and never as an end in and of itself. We all say that’s how we want to use technology – but he actually does it that way. (Now, the rest of you don’t get all defensive – I’m sure MANY of you are just as wonderful. I’m just sharing my personal warm fuzzies.)

Doke is partial to Google Slides and gets rather… enthusiastic when given the chance to share the many simple things you can do with them to make your lessons more flexible and your technology more useful without investing endless hours or – and this is a biggie – relying on your district to purchase and maintain subscriptions to specific apps or equipment. He showed me something he liked to do in Slides that would never have occurred to me. (As I said at the outset, it’s entirely possible this is obvious to everyone else in the world besides me. I can live with that.)

If you adjust the ‘View/Zoom’ for your slideshow while NOT in ‘Presentation’ mode, you’ll discover there’s all sorts of unused space around each slide. You may have stumbled across this in the past when moving around graphics or setting up animation. As it turns out, you can put stuff in these margins and it will be saved and accessible along with everything else, even though it’s not part of the slide.

I KNOW, RIGHT?!

Doke often uses this space for what I think of as ‘tokens’ which students can access. These can be numbered or customized to include their names (although the tokens have to be slightly larger that way). Whether they’re all in class together or meeting virtually (but synchronously), he’ll pose a question or prompt and offer the same sorts of options you’d see with multiple choice. Students move their tokens to the part of the slide which best reflects their response, then Doke calls on a few to explain why they chose what they did. Because they’re all on the same document, everyone sees what everyone else is answering – just like in class.

Yes, this is very similar to what Pear Deck does. I’ve not used Pear Deck extensively, but I hear great things. It might actually do this particular type of activity a bit better. I don’t have it, however, so it’s not a factor.

Here’s the long distance version of the same activity. I’ve used it with teachers successfully, but haven’t yet had the chance to do it this way with students. You’ll have to make your own copy (File, Make a Copy…) if you’d like to use it.

I like several things about this lesson in this format:

The discussions are still the discussions. They’re the key to the lesson being meaningful and the information sticky. Without good discussions, it’s just another quiz.

Anytime you can have synchronous (i.e., “live”) student responses in a form other than asking them to speak up in class, you change the dynamics and who’s likely to participate. That’s not to say it magically guarantees full engagement, but students who may not take initiative in class will often drag their token to the answer they like best.

If you have particularly shy or fragile students, the alpha-numeric system allows a degree of anonymity. One of my priorities is usually creating a dynamic in which everyone learns to speak up, and in which disagreement is healthy and means you respect the other person enough to challenge them, so anonymity is not a priority to me. Plus, it’s difficult to have discussions, even online, anonymously.

Finally, the slideshow is easily shared with students. It’s forever available should they choose to review anything or question anything after having time to think about it.

There are, of course, several downsides:

It’s tricky to keep track of who’s who on Slides. On Google Docs or Google Sheets, students logged in to their school Gmail show up on my screen as a cursor with their name next to it. I can also check version histories and edits in case there are shenanigans. I’m not sure Slides has a similar feature, and even if it does, it won’t help you if your students don’t have school Gmail accounts. That means in theory, anyone can move any number. (Then again, is there ANYTHING in class – virtual or otherwise – that’s completely bozo-proof?)

In order for students to have access to move their tokens around, I have to give them access to ‘Edit’ the Slideshow. That means in theory, they can add or delete slides or change other elements of the activity. I’ve made messing with the slides (accidentally or otherwise) a bit more difficult by ‘locking in’ everything except the tokens themselves. If you’ve made your own copy of the “Long Distance” version of the activity, you may have noticed that while you can move the tokens around, you can’t move around shapes or text on the slides like you normally could. It’s still possible – for you or anyone with ‘Edit’ access – but it’s more laborious and would require both knowledge and focused intent. This is thanks to another cool thing Doke showed me that is gradually changing my online instructional world. (Again, keep in mind that I’m nearly a thousand years old and still both startled and impressed by things like lava lamps or instant music downloads.)

If anyone’s interested, I’ll try to talk about ‘locking in’ elements of various slides next time. I’m learning to get better at doing it, but I’m not yet adept at explaining it. For now, you’re welcome to play with “Is That A Right?” and let me know how it works out. Keep in mind that you’ll have to make your own copy before it will let you edit anything or even move those little tokens around. Obviously, once you’ve made your own copy, you can add far more antagonistic, current event-related slides of your own and blame it on that guy who posted it on the internet to begin with.

You absolutey have that right.

RELATED POST: Those Circle Things

RELATED POST: Causes, Triggers, Events, and Results

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The Docs Heard ‘Round The World

July 12, 2020June 12, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

From History.com:

On the night of April 18, 1775, hundreds of British troops set off from Boston toward Concord, Massachusetts, in order to seize weapons and ammunition stockpiled there by American colonists. Early the next morning, the British reached Lexington, where approximately 70 minutemen had gathered on the village green. Someone suddenly fired a shot—it’s uncertain which side—and a melee ensued. When the brief clash ended, eight Americans lay dead and at least an equal amount were injured, while one redcoat was wounded…
The British continued on to nearby Concord, where that same day they encountered armed resistance from a group of patriots at the town’s North Bridge. Gunfire was exchanged, leaving two colonists and three redcoats dead. The British retreated back to Boston, skirmishing with colonial militiamen along the way and suffering a number of casualties; the Revolutionary War had begun.
The incident at the North Bridge later was memorialized by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his 1837 poem “Concord Hymn.” The opening stanza is: “By the rude bridge that arched the flood/Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled/Here once the embattled farmers stood/And fired the shot heard round the world.”

The first shots were fired at Lexington, but the first documented occasion on which colonial minutemen were ordered to fire upon British soldiers (and did) was on the North Bridge at Concord. That was what many would point to as the first official act of outright treason committed by the colonists and marked the beginning of open, violent rebellion in Massachusetts.

Your job is to read through the available primary sources and determine exactly what happened at Lexington and Concord. Who fired first? How do you know? And how do you explain any sources which don’t support your conclusions?

One of the most crushing things about doing summer training online this year was having to sacrifice some of my favorite and most effective activities. I haven’t found a meaningful way to do Causes, Triggers, Events, and Results in a long-distance format, nor did my “Oh No, Not Another Reading Strategy!” small group introduction to Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass pan out. I was especially distraught that there was no practical way to do any of the document activities of which I’m so proud and which have been so successful in class as well as with educators. I’m not saying none of these are possible, but I was unable to figure out a way to make them work in the time I had available.

(I know, you all feel so horrible for me right now. Clearly, my straight white male life is far more difficult and filled with suffering than others could even imagine. Boo, plus hoo.)

Still, I wanted to try to capture SOME of the benefits of a good document activity. I remembered references in some teacher book I’d read a few years ago to something similar involving the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World.” I did some poking around and found about a dozen variations of the activity, none of which quite fit what I wanted to do. The National Park Service has several of the better iterations for free on their website; the two I found most useful are available as PDF downloads from https://www.nps.gov/mima/learn/education/curriculummaterials.htm.

By way of introduction and skill-rehearsal, I added a “football game” document activity I lifted with only minor edits from an amazing AP World teacher and consultant named Jonathan Henderson. Several of his versions are posted to his website. I appreciate him not suing me for incorporating them; I think they set up the ‘legit’ part of the activity quite effectively. That’s no surprise – pretty much everything he shares is brilliant.

Because of time constrictions, I was only able to try the activity with one group, but they were amazing. I haven’t used this version with students yet, and this one won’t fit my current assignment anytime soon. So, if you decide to give this one a shot (no pun intended) as is or after making your own modifications, I’d love to hear what you did and how it went. I’ve intentionally decided not to offer too much else by way of “how” to run the activity, let alone offer a list of steps. As with any activity, how you use it depends less on knowing how I do and more on your style, your class, your goals, etc.

You should be able to easily make a copy for yourself which you can then edit as you see fit. I’d love to know how it goes.

The Docs Heard ‘Round The World (Google Slides Link)

RELATED POST: Those Circle Things

RELATED POST: Is That A Right?

Those Circle Things

April 25, 2020June 16, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

Sometimes it’s the simplest ideas that end up being the most useful.

Several years ago I co-presented a workshop with an amazing woman named Ayn Grubb. While I pride myself on getting along with other consultants or trainers or whatever they happen to be called that week, I’m sure it won’t surprise you to learn that there are really only a handful I genuinely admire and for whom I maintain an irrepressible teacher-crush. Ayn is one of that handful. Her style is quite different than mine, but she works a room of educators like Yo-Yo Ma works a bow or a hibachi chef works a seafood combo for eight.

At one point, she went up to the white board at the front of the room and drew the simplest little thing – a circle divided into four quadrants. In each quadrant, she wrote a single word. (I don’t even remember what the topic was; I was too busy having a life-changing experience.) She asked us which one didn’t belong and why, then gave us time to discuss.

I immediately stole the idea and never looked back. I have no idea if she lifted it from somewhere else or came up with it herself. I’m sure it would never occur to her to take credit either way. And, to be fair, the underlying idea does sorta go way back…

I started using variations of what I’ve come to simply think of as “Those Circle Things” in workshops, in class, and sometimes just to annoy friends at parties. They make great bell-ringers, discussion-starters, and I’ve even used them as informal assessments.

They’re also pretty easy to use with Google Slides or Pear Deck or whatever technological platform makes you tingle, and work equally well for synchronous or asynchronous discussion. They’re especially useful when you need ideas for “e-learning” on snow days, or when something else you had planned completely falls apart at the last minute.

Whatever the context, I always begin with something non-threatening and not content-based. Since I’m a sucker for superheroes, here’s one I used for many years:

What do these four things have in common? Which one doesn’t fit, and why?

The first few times I use something like this, whether with students or teachers, we’re establishing norms or procedures or classroom dynamics – whatever you call it in your world. See, we don’t actually CARE about these four characters, at least academically. What we care about is the process and the approach.

At the risk of preaching to the pedagogical choir, I’ll be annoyingly specific about what I mean.

We’re learning a new skill with non-threatening content (and usually learn new content with familiar skills).
The first few slides shouldn’t require much in the way of specialized content knowledge in order to participate. Anyone can come up with a few things even if they’re not particularly deep. This should be encouraged.
As it becomes clear that some of us know more about the topic than others, this should be celebrated. It demonstrates that we all have different backgrounds and bring different insights to the discussion. If I know more about Luke Cage than you do, that’s not because I’m “smart” or you’re “stupid.” One’s depth of knowledge regarding Luke Cage is not actually how we evaluate one’s usefulness or potential as a human being these days (although we’ve all endured worse metrics, I’m sure).
It’s better to be “wrong” than to be afraid. If someone suggests that three of the characters have superpowers and one (Agent Carter) doesn’t, others might disagree and argue that Green Arrow is really just a guy with money and toys who exercises. As a result of this discussion, however, we may end up exploring how we’re using terms like “super” or “hero” or “abilities” in useful, enlightening ways. If the person who was “wrong” about Green Arrow hadn’t floated his or her idea to begin with, we might never have gotten there, and that would be sad.
As with many classroom discussions, it’s important to find ways to be inclusive. The most basic is to encourage students or participants to ponder each slide in small groups for a few minutes before we talk about them as a whole. This allows individuals to bounce ideas off of one another, resolve minor errors, and learn from one another before “speaking up” and taking what often feels like a greater risk before the entire group.
When we’re learning a new skill or procedure, the process is more important than the content. We’re modeling academic courtesy and discussion, learning to take risks with information about which we may be uncertain, and practicing the sort of listening to one another and civil disagreement which is often essential for real learning to occur.

Let’s try another one. Keep in mind we want to discuss ways they’re all the same as well as identify which one doesn’t fit, and why: (And yes, I should update this example before using these again.)

You probably figured out pretty quickly that there’s usually more than one solution to which one doesn’t fit and why. These aren’t multiple choice questions with one objectively “correct” answer. It’s the process of examining each item in comparison with the others that forces us to review what we already know, reinforces the information we use to argue whatever point we choose to make as a result, stretches our understanding of each item a bit, and lays the groundwork for actual analysis and argument should we eventually go there.

It’s a critical thinking thing. It just doesn’t look like it right away because… Twilight.

Once the idea is established, these can be used in endless iterations depending on your needs and goals and the depth of knowledge expected of your students. If you’re using them to introduce a topic, their existing content knowledge may be less important. If you’re using them as an informal assessment, on the other hand…

I’ll leave you with a few of my favorites in recent years. Some are a bit more complex than others based on the classes I had at the time. You’ll notice that sometimes the visuals are related to the text and sometimes they’re not – an inconsistency I should eventually address. I can tell you from experience you’ll want to clarify up front whether you expect students to consider the visuals or just the words in the circle.