Category Archives: Mitch

All-New Flipgrid, Seriously!

Posted on by

I used Flipgrid for a few lessons back in the day. My students and I were not overly impressed. If you
are a long time S.F. Chronicle reader you will understand our rating. We were paying attention, but not really excited. It was a little man politely sitting in his chair reaction.

When I stumbled across a web page “introducing the all-new Flipgrid curiosity forced me to to take a look. I could not believe what I was reading. The individual student time limit was raised from the old 1.5 minutes to walloping 5 minutes. What student can speak for five minutes straight about an academic subject? If you find such a student, these five minute segments can be linked together seamlessly for as long as you might desire.

Students can also create their videos in iMovie or some other video program and import their files by simply dragging them onto their Flipgrid. Another amazing new feature.

The teacher can sort and link the student videos in any way she wants simply by dragging them up or down, or by creating a new grid for selected videos. This is beyond cool. I just divided my class into six teams. Each team researched an example of United States imperialism. Each student read a segment of the example with inserted images. I ordered these sequentially to make coherent (sort of coherent for this first attempt) videos that covered the whole subject. When we played them back, bada bing bada boom (this set had more bing than boom). It’s a work in progress, but with such potential.

There’s more! Flipgrid has a rubric for grading built in. No kidding. Here is a screenshot of a custom rubric. Students can also see the criteria for the top level of each category. How cool is that?

Notice that you can email individual feedback to each student.  No one will have any doubts about their grade, especially after they read the comments section. How cool can you get without being redundantly cool?

I have become a Flipgrid aficionado. The possibilities are so many. The all-new Flipgrid really is all new and had me jumping out of my chair. Give it a try. I bet you will like it as much as the little man.

Website Project Final Exam

Posted on by
This is the second time I have had my students create websites for their final exams. This time I asked them what they thought of this type of final. I was blown away by the consistency and strength of their answers. The eight questions each began with “Which type of test is better for…” The answer choices were bubble sheet, timed writing, and website project. From memorizing to creating, the overwhelming choice was the website project. You can view the results here.



The last item called for comments. Here are a few of the better typical comments. You can view all 138 comments here.
  • I believe that ultimately each asks for a different level and way of thinking and analysis. A bubble sheet test asks for memorization and no in depth analysis, simply a regurgitation of facts. Timed writing requires one to take information and develop it further into a grander and deeper idea. A website takes both of these ideas and allows for the deepest and most well thought out development of them.

  • I think it is more valuable to do projects because you can more creatively show and connect what you have learned rather than just memorize stuff and spit it out on a test and then forget about it after.

  • Bubble sheets are more stressful in a time that is already stressful. The website was given to us earlier in the year giving us more time to make it the best we can. I also learned a lot more creating a website rather than studying for a test.

  • The three are very different but I think the website lets you write to the best of your ability and get put out all the knowledge you’ve learned. Timed writing would give us less time and won’t let us be able to out as much information.

  • Bubble sheets are good for memorizing dates and names, but often it is forgotten soon after. A timed write allows you to go into detail on a subject, but the time limit makes it harder to consider different options. A website allows to cover a range of topics in depth and gives enough time to think deeply about the benefits and consequences of the fact

  • I believe bubble sheet tests are good assessing your knowledge but you won’t necessarily remember the information later. Timed writes are good at assessing your knowledge as well but I find myself making up information to take up space in the essay. I feel like website projects are the best type of final exams because you have to be an expert on the subject to write about it.

  • The bubble sheet and timed writing tests are faster and better at assessing factual knowledge, but the website project leaves more room for creativity and for us to express our own perspective on topics. I think the website project is just as effective at educating us, but it is less stressful.

  • Bubble sheet tests can encourage studying, but more common than not students will cram information into their brains, take the test, and forget it immediately after. Timed writing tests are stressful and don’t always produce the best work because everyone is rushing to get their thoughts into words. Project tests are by far the best because they are fun, collaborative, and make learning about a project enjoyable and fun. It also encourages collaboration between students.
  • I think website projects have the most value because they allow students to synthesize new information while applying other information we have learned throughout the semester. They are also good because it is an interesting project that does not cause a lot of stress.


The comments were amazing. There is really nothing else to add. I did not know students thought about learning in this depth. Of course, this is just one example of the power of Project Based Learning, but firsthand experience makes it so much more meaningful. 


I would enjoy hearing about and discussing PBL with others. Please let me know if you are using it in your curriculum.

Blended Strategies

Posted on by

I have a problem and would like to know if anyone can help. I have a love/hate relationship with blended classes. I love the quality student to teacher and student to student contact time afforded by blended classes. I hate how many students do not make good use of their out of class blended time. I hate how it seems there must be a trade-off between quality class time and hit and miss out of class time. There must be a better way.

Just to add another layer, I would like my student teams to work together on some of their out of class blended days. Students see the benefits of teaming. When I have teams sit on the patio or in the hall, they can complete much work in their teams. Just having that extra space that allows them to not be sitting back to back in a crowded classroom really helps, but they still need supervision. Instead of monitoring a group discussion, I must patrol the teams to answer questions and to insure students are staying on task. There must be a better way. There is too much good about blended classes to give them up just because there are some problems.

One other great attribute of blended classes is that they prepare students for college. I still vividly remember when the president of San Jose State back in 1965 addressed my freshman class. He said he really appreciated the opportunity to meet all of us this one time because only half of us would make it to graduation. Wow, a fifty percent dropout rate! That really shocked me until I learned how many distractions there are in college. The current average college dropout rate seems to be about thirty percent. That’s still a lot of students who never learn how to discipline themselves to study independently. What better place to learn independent study habits than in high school? In college there are not helicopter parents and no incentive for teachers to be helicopter teachers. Blended classes can provide that transition students need to be successful in college.

So, here is the question. How do we wean students from depending on a closed and structured classroom environment without losing them to the myriad of distractions right outside the classroom door?

This second semester I am going to try some “in house” blended teaching. Students will have time on their own outside the classroom, but must stay on campus. Since I will be in the gigantic I-Center, there should be plenty of quiet spaces for students to work. But I need ways to insure they are really working. One idea is to have team members spend the last few minutes of the class time summarizing what they have learned is a short discussion. They will record the discussion and turn in the recording as an assignment. Another is exit tickets. These can be done as a team or individually at the end of the class. The students would not be in class, but it is the same idea. I thought of journals, but so far I have found that students tire of them and I don’t have time to look at them. Maybe I am doing it wrong. This is not a long list of ideas. I would like to have a few more, especially ones that work.

I don’t want to go into this cold turkey. I will have had enough of that after Thanksgiving. Please let me know if you have tried anything to monitor blended independent time work. What has worked for you? What has not worked for you? Am I the only one who thinks about this?

Hot Seat Two

Posted on by



How do you have a successful whole class discussion with 30+
students? The secret is to keep them moving and, of course, having a killer
topic to discuss. The latest format I have found that works well combines the
fishbowl, jigsaw, and Socratic discussion. I call this one Hot Seat Two. I have
already written about my hot seat discussions, thus the “two.”

For this discussion I started with the topic, “Is there a
natural law or a divine law that dictates the predominance of one group of
people over another?” In U.S. History we explore such topics while studying the
Gilded Age.

To prepare for the discussion each student must use two
sources and find at least five relevant and unique quotes from each source. My
students are in teams of five to six students. No member of a team allowed to
use sources chosen by any other team member. When all research is completed,
team resources are combined for a total of at least ten sources and fifty
quotes. The team members then share and discuss their individual work and share
their ideas about how the information might help answer the essential question.

On the day of the discussion desks are arranged in a big
circle like a fishbowl with all team members side by side, but with only one
seat in the inner circle for each team. Team members in the inner circle are
each given two opportunities in a random jigsaw manner to present two arguments
supported by evidence, or to respond to another student with more or
conflicting evidence. No one has to speak, and the discussion order is random.
Students did get points for speaking and none for silence. As soon as the round
is over, another teammate takes the hot seat and the discussion continues.
Between discussion sessions I give about a minute for team members to discuss
what the next speaker might wish to contribute. These team discussions are
short but animated.

Each round goes quickly, about five minutes. I have each new
speaker come from the right hand  seat
from the team’s outer circle and have everyone move over one seat to the right.
This, and the one minute reviews, relieves the boredom of sitting for a long
time. The standing and sitting actually encourage team discussion. Short
sessions and moving around keep the discussion fresh and lively. In a long
block everyone gets to join the discussion at least twice, and everyone stays
engaged.

Here are a few typical responses from students’ Friday
Feedback.

“The thing I liked the most is that everyone got an
opportunity to speak during the discussion and no one dominated.”

“Everyone brought up important subjects that we found on our
own and the discussion was productive.”

“I liked hearing everybody’s different perspectives and
gaining new ideas from them. I liked that I was able to have more perspectives
because of this discussion.”

“Whenever I had something to add but wasn’t in the hot seat
I couldn’t. I suggest adding an empty hot seat to the circle that anyone can
jump in.”

“I don’t like class discussions because I’m shy but I think
it worked really well.”

The only negative responses were about not having enough
time to talk more. I think the key factor for the positive responses was the
movement. Complaints in past discussions involved too much sitting and
disengagement through lack of participation. Being able to move and talk about
ideas between each round of discussion keeps the blood flowing and makes
everyone feel more involved. Try a Hot Seat Two and see if it works well for
you.

Processing Content

Posted on by

How’s that for a catchy title? It’s about as exciting as discovering that most of your students did not read the assigned reading or watch the assigned video. The remedy might be to assign outlining or note taking. Maybe give a quiz! How about doing a reflection? Even after all of these are you still getting blank stares instead of a great discussion?

Recently, I had my students in four classes read or listen to a chapter in the book, “The Half Has Never Been Told.” They were required to take “prolific” notes. I broke the reading down into three parts that were due during three consecutive days.

Now for the good part. Instead of having a discussion, I had a contest following each day of reading. I would read a question aloud. Teammates (I have five to six teams in each class) were given a few minutes to discuss their notes and come up with a good answer to the question. The first answer was determined by “Popsicle Sticks”, an app that randomly selects students. When you select the one student at a time option, the app even says their name aloud. That got everyone’s attention because no one knew who would go first. After the first answer, team reporters were allowed to either dispute the answer or add to the answer. For every answer given by a teammate, the team was given a point. I included about five or six questions for each contest. At the end I announced the team standings.

I noticed that most everyone was really engaged. The engagement improved each day over the three days. On the first day someone always asked about how this contest would be graded. It told them we were doing the contest to experience the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. No grades would be given. Everyone seemed to be perfectly happy with this. On day two and three the contests were met with anticipation.

One great outcome was that students were really thinking about how they could add value to the previous answer. Many ideas were suggested, most expanding on the previous answers. We were having a good discussion in the form of a contest.

Many students mentioned the contests in their “Friday Feedback” assignments. Many commented on how the discussions helped them understand the material much better. They thought it was a great way to use their notes. They enjoyed the contests and asked to do more of them. They were not too thrilled about the “Popsicle Sticks” random name selection but agreed that it helped keep everyone engaged. Overall, the comments were overwhelmingly positive. This one is a winner! I will be doing it again.

Reflection

Posted on by

Okay, I must admit, I learned something from Michael Schooler while team teaching the American Studies class. I did learn other somethings, but this was not just a normal something. This was a big something.

Social studies teachers like the facts. As Joe Friday would say, “All we want are the facts, ma’am.” To ensure students know the facts we have them write summaries and outlines. We even give quizzes. I mean, how can students even begin to understand history without knowing all the facts?

Early on in American Studies my teammate, Mr. Schooler, gave the students a reflection assignment. My first reaction, I must admit, was that this was the beginning of that touchy feely English department stuff that is so not social studies. As the first set of reflections came in I could see that the students were thinking deeply about the material and were drawing some great connections between the ideas in the text and their own life experiences.

By the end of the year I was completely sold on this whole reflection thing. It is the linking mechanism that ties the curriculum to each student’s worldview, or life experience. It turns dry curriculum into exciting curriculum. It lights the way to that critical connection between the content and the student.

This year almost every assignment I give includes a reflection. Students are making the connections. They can see how everything they learn does relate to their own lives. This one little extra stretch has made a huge difference in students’ depth of understanding and appreciation. It is an essential key to student engagement. Reflections rock. Thank you, Michael, for showing me the real value of this “touchy feely” learning tool.

Extrinsic Motivation: It Might Be Even Worse Than You Thought

Posted on by
Extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation has been a controversy since before I began teaching some 50 years ago. I have used grades, M&M’s, gold stars, rubber stamps tickets, and smiley faces to reward students for their good work and good behavior. I have done away with all of these except grades. That’s still a work in progress.

According to several studies these methods get results, but not the right results. A recent attendance study I read in Edutopia had unexpected negative results.It concludes that, “It’s a reminder that extrinsic rewards can be demotivating and actually decrease the behaviors we want to encourage.” Another study concludes:
Conversely, intrinsic motivation exists within the individual and can be harnessed and enhanced by environments that support the individual’s autonomy and competence. Intrinsic motivation underlies people’s natural inclinations to seek out novelty and challenge, as well as to learn, develop, and grow. Unlike extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation is associated creativity and vitality (Deci and Ryan 2008).

If we want students to seek out novelty and challenge, if we want them to be truly engaged in understanding the subject matter, we should de-emphasize grades and focus on the joy that can be found in learning the subject by projecting our enthusiasm and by showing the relevance of the subject.


I will conclude by telling you why I am posting this. The extrinsic motivation is minimal. I don’t even know if it will enhance my standing in the evaluation process. I do know that I want students to love learning for the sake of learning and I want teachers to love teaching their students to love learning. This intrinsic motivation is lasting, meaningful, and productive. It is the motivation that will make our students the 21st century lifelong learners we want them to be. I hope this will help other teachers to maintain their focus on ways to enhance intrinsic motivation in their students instead of the self defeating extrinsic motivations. And I hate it when students ask, “What I have to do to get an “A” in this class?”

In Search of Deeper Learning:

Posted on by

In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake The American High School by Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine


It is difficult to find a truly impressive book about education. In Search of Deeper Learning just went to the top of my “truly impressive” list. This book is the culmination of a decade long search for “good” high schools. The investigation was thorough and the conclusions are founded on strong data. What the authors found were a few outstanding teachers and even fewer outstanding high schools. More important, they found a common thread that links together the teaching techniques of seemingly divergent teaching styles and school philosophies. There is a way to identify great teaching and train teachers to be great. The secret is as individual as each teacher and as universal as caring, passion, and understanding. This book is an essential read for anyone who wishes to learn the traits of great teaching.

The foundation of great teaching is based on two essential concepts. The first is student engagement. Students become engaged in the learning process when they see the relevance of the learning.Teachers must make a connection between the lives of the students and the learning that is taking place. Students often will not intuitively see relevance. It is the job of the teacher to show the connections that will engage the students. There are many ways to engage students. Examples were given of math teachers who used games and puzzles, just like video games,  to help students achieve understanding of difficult math problems. English teachers carefully selected books and passages that had meaning for their students. The details vary from teacher to teacher, and subject to subject. However engagement is achieved, engagement through relevancy is essential.

The second essential is rigor. Students must feel they are challenged. They must realize that the path to success is preceded by failure, sometimes much failure. Learning new skills as outlined in Bloom’s Taxonomy is not easy. Rigor is not gained through memorization or by following recipes for success laid out by the teacher. It is gained through research and discovery. It is gained through analysis, contemplation, and discussion. Knowledge hard won is long remembered. 

The role of the teacher cannot be solely a purveyor of content knowledge. The teacher must be a facilitator of discovery. Students must become adept at using the same skills are used by the experts in the discipline. These are the skills of research, experimentation, synthesis, creativity, and whatever else is specific to each discipline. As master craftsmen teach the apprentices and journeymen, the accomplished teacher introduces the students to the skills of the discipline and guides the students in the use of these skills with the goal of moving students from memorization and mimicking to creativity. Teachers must move from being the “sage on the stage” to the “guide on the side.” I like to tell students that I have done my job when they don’t need me anymore. This is when they know how to use the tools of historians to analyze reliable information that will enable them to create their own understanding of the meaning of historical events. 

This leads to another essential attribute of great teachers. They must be experts in their field. They must have a depth of knowledge and understanding that makes them true academics. Teachers must be heavily engaged and be passionate about their fields of study. They must 
show by example what this looks like and feels like. Teachers must have a passion to share and teach what they know. It is the combination of loving their course of study and having the desire to draw others into this sphere of engagement. 

There are not many teachers in the United States who meet these qualifications. The reason is that most teachers have been taught in the old system of “drill and kill” memorizations, just like their parents and grandparents. The study found that most of the teachers who were able to break out of the old system had atypical learning experiences of their own that allowed them to see the benefits of teaching in new ways. A system of mentoring appears to be the best organized way for apprentice teachers to learn this different way of teaching. 

Many schools have programs that are doing quite well. They are just not “academic” programs. Student centered education is happening in many art departments and physical education departments. Extra curricular programs are also a place to find student centered learning. The authors spend much time discussing how theater programs can be one of the best areas to witness student engagement. These are places where students can be in charge of their own learning. They are places where students create their own products that can be shared with and evaluated by others. It is the academic programs that are lagging behind because they are missing these essentials of choice, creation and sharing. 

There is so much more in this book that must be read with all the examples and data to be fully appreciated. For the remainder of this writing I will become more personal as I evaluate my teaching while reflecting on what new ideas I have gleaned from reading this book.

The book discusses how socializing is a focal point for most teens. It suggests using learning teams to enhance engagement. I begin each year with classes divided into teams. Several days are spent with team building exercises designed to show how teams should work. Students will continue to work in teams with team members helping and learning from each other. This also allows students to evaluate each other’s work and to learn the criteria for good work. Teaming is an essential element of a healthy classroom. Next year I am going to focus more on using teams to collect and evaluate content. I often find myself providing too much guidance when it comes to finding good material. Students need more practice searching out material themselves. 

The course content I teach is fairly easy to relate to students’ lives. It must be explicit. It must be discussed to bring out the relevance, but most students see and appreciate the relevance of what they are learning. I need to find more and better ways to have discussions in larger classes. It was easy with American Studies because we could divide the class in half. I need to experiment with ways to have more small group discussions while the rest of the class is working independently. I am looking forward to the opportunities the new STEM Center will have for dividing the class. It might be more amenable to an in house blended situation. I have some ideas. We will see how they work out. 

The last observation in the book that rang true was that this highly successful way of teaching is much easier when the whole school or most of the school is on the same page. This begins with the administration. It would be good for the administrators to read this book. It discussed blended learning, flipped classrooms, block scheduling, and other variations on time allocation. These may or may not be helpful. It goes back to each teacher, and the relevance and rigor embedded in the curriculum. These factors are much more important than any external changes. Once you read the book you will see that everything comes back to each teacher and the methods each teacher uses to build relationships with and among students, and the way each teacher guides students through the curriculum with the focus on building the skills of each discipline.

There’s a Cell Phone in Your Student’s Head

Posted on by

Those new cell phone caddies may be more useful than expected. It seems that cell phones have so conditioned our students that the phones are a distraction even when they are in pockets or backpacks.

Putting the phones out of reach helps students concentrate on other things. It is not a perfect solution, but it is better than leaving the phones within reach. This is typical habitual and/or addictive behavior. Students crave their phones even when they cannot have them.

Watch this video to see the hard evidence.

https://www.edutopia.org/video/theres-cell-phone-your-students-head

Sustainability and Paper

Posted on by

What is that right in the middle of the Word Cloud in Carrie’s email? Does it say “less paper?” Do we really want to use less paper right here at Carondelet? After I read Carrie’s email and completed the feedback survey, I decided to visit the little room in the copy room. There on the floor of the copy room were 30 boxes holding 150,000 sheets of paper. And this is only a small portion of the paper used at Carondelet. We are not using less paper. We are using more.

Aside from the sacrificed trees and the released carbon, it took about a half million gallons of water to make those 30 boxes of paper. This water is filled with bleaching chemicals and acids from the trees. That half million gallons of water has become toxic waste just so we can have nice bright white paper that will be used once and discarded. Is our number one priority really using less paper? How can this be? We are using more, not less.

Everything that can be printed can be turned into a pdf file. Students can upload articles, images, and math problem, or we can put them in Schoology. Students can take handwritten notes and solve math problems using Notability or similar programs. Check out these annotations and reflections by one of the American Studies students. If you are into multiple choice tests, Schoology has a great quiz module. If we really want to use it, we have all the technology in place to go almost totally paper free. Think of the trees, the money, and the water we will save. Think about how good we will feel. Think about how good our students will feel knowing how ecologically minded we are here at Carondelet.

Let me know if you want to go paperless, or Joan, or whoever you know who has gone paperless. Others must have paperless classrooms. If you do, share your story. It would be so cool if we could cut our paper use in half next year. How’s that for a great goal?