BYOD: Advice from Michigan teacher of the year, Gary Abud

This past weekend, I had the privilege of attending the Metropolitan Detroit Science Teachers Association (MDSTA) conference. I went to some cool sessions, including one led by a MACer from two years ago, but I think my favorite was the one called "All aboard the BYOD express!" It was run by a delightful man named Gary Abud, who just so happens to be the Michigan teacher of the year. He has taught chemistry, biology, and physics, but currently serves as an instructional coach for the Grosse Pointe school system. I got the chance to talk to him one on one earlier in the day and he's a really great guy, approachable and fun, and I'm very glad to have made that connection. His session turned out to be as enjoyable - and informative! - as I hoped.

Gary began with a very interesting point about BYOD as a concept. He said that we often tell students to put their devices away because we don't want them to look up the answers. His counterpoint was simple and powerful: if a student can Google their way through your class, you have some serious rethinking to do. And he's absolutely right. If a phone can do all the thinking for a student in your class, then you're not asking for any higher order thinking and that's a problem. Gary also addressed another common worry about BYOD by saying that not every student in your room has to have a device because it's easy to do grouping activities and have students share.

Gary spent most of his presentation doing in depth demonstrations of three tools: GoSoapbox, InfuseLearning, and Socrative. We have heard of the last two in 504, but I really enjoyed seeing the tools in action with a room full of 40 people. Also, GoSoapbox was new to me, and it was Gary's favorite. As his presentation demonstrated clearly, each of these tools has its own strengths and weaknesses, and choosing between them really depends on what you want for your classroom.

I'll summarize some of the highlights of these three tools here. At the bottom of the post you'll find a video Gary made about various tech tools in the classroom - start around 8:30 for the specific discussion around these "total participation" tools.

GoSoapbox

With this tool, a teacher creates an "event" that students use a code to enter. Once in the event, students can navigate between three types of objects: polls, questions, and discussions. The teacher can pre-load polls and questions, keep them invisible, then switch them to visible at the appropriate moment during class. The discussion section is more open; students can ask each other questions and have conversations about the class. Students can see poll results on their own device if the teacher has that option selected, but the responses are anonymous.

Pros: Students can explore all the pieces of the "event" whenever they want - revisit past polls, see other answers to questions, respond to peer questions. This event remains open beyond class time, allowing flexibility for its use beyond the hours of the school day.

Cons: Teacher has no way of knowing whether all of the students have replied without scanning through the names and seeing if someone's missing. Students could get distracted by the flexible format.

InfuseLearning

With this tool, the teacher does not load in specific questions. Instead, she clicks on a certain type of response (true/false, multiple choice, free response) and students see a prompt to reply. The specific question itself must be delivered by the teacher verbally or on the board. The teacher sees a list of students and each student gets greyed out as they submit a response, so she can ask any missing students specifically to respond. The teacher also has the option of saving results for later analysis. One really cool function of InfuseLearning is the possibility of submitting a drawn picture as a response. This could be very useful in a science or math classroom. Ask students to sketch a graph or balance an equation, then scroll through and discuss everyone's responses projected up on the screen. I think this is a really cool way to get a snapshot of the whole room's thinking. It also makes student work the subject of conversation rather than the teacher always writing things on the board. Another useful feature of InfuseLearning is the quiz function. You can load in a complete quiz beforehand, then start the quiz and have students complete it during class. The results are saved and any multiple choice questions are graded automatically.

Pros: Teacher can check for 100% response rate and know exactly who is missing. Draw response function. Saving results (polls become a csv file, drawings become a PDF). Easy quiz execution and grading.

Cons: Inability to pre-load questions into the event for formative assessments during class. Students can't see anything except the currently active prompt - they don't see results or past questions. Results have to be shown from the teacher's device.

Socrative

Socrative is kind of a blend of the two above tools with its own quirks. Socrative allows for one device to submit multiple assessments which can really help if not all students have a compatible device. We didn't get as complete of a demonstration of Socrative, but Gary did get a chance to show us his favorite feature of Socrative. Like the other tools, students can submit a free response answer to a question. After these responses are gathered, students can then vote on the one that they feel is most correct. This is very useful for promoting reflection and developing a class consensus around an idea.

Pros: Multiple responses, voting on free response answers.

Cons: No drawing feature. Students cannot see anything except the currently active prompt.

These summaries are by no means complete, and each of these tools is a rich resource in its own right. I personally am most attracted to InfuseLearning - I love the ability to save results and use them as part of my evaluation of class progress on the individual and whole hour levels. The drawing feature would be incredibly useful to get a quick sense of where students are on a topic. There's something so much more authentic about a hand drawing (even if it's on a digital tool) than typing in an answer. I also like that students can't click around idly while I'm trying to keep them focused; the tool enters the conversation only when I want it to. The prospect of auto-graded quizzes is also very attractive.

The more I learn about these tools, the more convinced I am that I want to make them part of my teaching. There's potential here to bridge the generation gap and reach students where they are as incredibly proficient users of advanced technology. As a young teacher who has grown up with technology (well, I got my first laptop at 14 and my first phone at 18... but I caught on quick!) and is also very proficient in it, I feel that I am well-placed to leverage these tools in my classroom. I loved learning about them in such a fun, interactive environment. I recommend checking out teacher conferences when you get a chance!

Here is Gary's video about BYOD:

"Standards-based grading," or, reaching out to an edublogger

For one of my responses to an edublogger, I revisited the blog that I wrote about over the summer, Science Education on the Edge by Chris Ludwig. There have only been two new posts - I imagine he's been rather busy getting the school year rolling! - but they were both candid and informative, as all of his posts are.

His latest post, Zero Points Were Given (which, by the way, is a play on a popular (and profane!) internet saying that I will not repeat here, which says to me that this guy is very plugged in, much like myself), is a provocative screed against traditional points-based grading system followed by his thoughts about an alternative. His alternative could be broadly termed "standards-based grading," but Chris prefers to frame his approach as asking "'what do you want students to know and be able to do?' and 'what will you be looking for in their performances of learning?'". He replaces assignments with content and skill goals that he wants his students to be able to attain. He provides them with concrete feedback about how to improve, then allows them to respond to his feedback by, you know, improving! He uses a system called BlueHarvest that I blogged a bit about in my last post to keep track of this narrative feedback (and responses by students). As for converting this type of feedback into numerical grades, as required for most schools and college applications, he provides some advice about establishing a consistent method of doing this. He concludes this advice with a pretty powerful insight: "It will be subjective. But so is everything about teaching if you are doing it right and responding to different student needs and abilities." I gotta say I agree with him. From what I've seen so far, trying to stick to some "objective" grading standard is not only impossible, it's irresponsible. By making the subjective system something that also helps students to improve, it seems like Chris is significantly improving the experience of his students. The final piece of his system is to have students make a weekly check-in in which they argue for a certain grade they have earned that week, and they have to use evidence of their work to support their argument. Perhaps as a happy accident, this also lets students practice one of the 8 scientific practices in the new standards: arguing from evidence!

While I enjoyed his post very much and like the sound of his classroom, I couldn't help but puzzle over exactly how such a system could get up and rolling in my classroom (and any high needs classroom I might find myself in). It seems like it requires significant student independence. So I made the following comment on the post:

As a pre-service teacher trying to figure out my “own” approach to teaching (which will inevitably be a pastiche of other peoples’ ideas until I really get my legs under me), your blog is fascinating because it presents a perspective I haven’t heard yet. I appreciate your candor and detail because it helps me to envision how these things can work in a classroom.

I am intrigued by your critique of points-based grading and the alternative you have developed. I was a kid (still am, kind of, in my masters program…) who was excellent at playing the game and got As across the board pretty much throughout my educational experience. As I’ve grown older and realized that the world doesn’t give you an A simply for following directions, I’ve begun to worry that what earned me the label of “brilliant” in school is not terribly useful in the real world. This makes me think hard about what I want to communicate to my own students. Does the ability to successfully complete a multiple choice test about atomic structure correlate to any real world ability? I’m not sure it does. I am searching avidly for ways to make learning chemistry relevant and enriching. I’m wondering if your approach could be part of the key to that.

What I struggle with, however, is figuring out how to earn enough buy in to this system to get it to work. I am currently student teaching in an urban arts school. My students, by and large, have a dismissive attitude towards science, and the ones that try do so mostly because they need to pass chemistry to graduate. Many of my 11th graders are at a middle school or lower level in math and/or reading. I struggle with how I could inspire and foster the kind of independence and motivation it seems like such a system needs in order to function. I have a vision of students excitedly investigating questions related to chemistry of their own volition, but then I think about how many of my students need extensive one-on-one scaffolding to carry out unit conversions and I hit a mental roadblock about how to translate one into the other.

That said, right now my mentor and I have students who have a grade of literally 4%, students that I know are sweet kids and don’t want to fail. I want to help them. And I think stepping away from empty number grades would be one way to do that.

I would appreciate any advice on how to kickstart such an effort – maybe some baby steps toward the full fledged model. Where do I even begin?

Only hours later, Chris responded with a generous comment filled with advice:

Anne,
Thanks so much for the comment and for being willing to tell us about your situation! As a chemistry teacher for ~15 years now, I have yet to really hit on the magic formula that will make it appealing to everyone. I have some small victories at times, but often it feels like I’m losing the battle to get kids to really understand chemistry at the level that I think they should. With that said, some things work better than others to get chemistry students involved in class:
-Labs seem to work really well at engaging students, although they sometimes seem to come away with a more superficial understanding than I would like because they lack some of the background knowledge about underlying principles.
-Drill and kill worksheets only help a small percentage of students, and while I might think they are necessary, students don’t often agree.
-The best assignments in chemistry are those that respond to student interests. This is tricky, since not every student’s interest can be sparked easily, but I bet your arts students might find some interest in the science behind paint pigments, for example, and maybe the tie-dye lab.

The real trick is to set up a system that can help students realize even small gains in skills and content knowledge in your class. We should reward students with some helpful suggestions rather than having to come up with a number to represent how many points we think they are worth that day. They might be way below where I would like them to be, but if they are willing to work with me at all and follow my advice, I can usually get them on track.

One last piece of advice: allow students multiple ways to show you what they know. That way they’ve taken some ownership of what works best for them, even if it doesn’t always conform to what we think chemistry class really ought to look like. 

You have the right attitude about stealing other people’s ideas, and I look forward to stealing some ideas from you in the future.

I very much appreciate Chris's quick reply, his kind comments, and his honest advice. He doesn't try to sugar coat for the newbie but rather responds candidly and specifically to my thoughts. That said, I have to be honest in turn and say that I'm slightly dismayed by these insights from an expert. His concern about labs and students taking away a superficial understanding is definitely one of my biggest concerns for teaching chemistry. Seeing chemistry in action is one thing; really understanding the underlying explanation, and transferring that to other contexts, is a whole other ballgame. I'm also concerned about his lack of regard for "drill and kill" sheets; I think there are some skills (converting between units, naming compounds, balancing equations) that can only really be nailed down with repeated practice. Does he remove emphasis from such skills in his classroom? It seems as though most higher level chemistry applications are absolutely predicated on having such skills in one's mental toolbox. Since my students have significant difficulties with math, I fear I will leave them behind if I try to jump into the more "solid" stuff without spending time trying to master the "basics" first. I may have to leave a follow up question asking him to clarify this point. Our students do a lot of worksheets right now, but I would be hard pressed to think of an alternative method to learn the skills we're targeting right now.

I do quite like his suggestion that chemistry teaching try to draw from and respond to student interests. I think there's a lot we could do with our students' passions and talents at DSA. I'd love to hear them come up with a chemistry song, for example, or do an interpretive dance of covalent bonding. Such ideas might be something I would consider going into the second semester, when I have more autonomy.

The central piece of his thinking, which he highlights in his comment, is to give students something real to build off of, a blueprint for their own improvement. I think this is a valuable insight. Right now, my mentor teacher generally gives numerical grades with little substantive feedback. On the other hand, what we're grading is often problems with clear cut answers, and it would take ages to explicitly write out responses and corrections for every student's work. Chris's use of BlueHarvest is crucial in supporting him in this endeavor to provide substantive individualized feedback and I think I will seriously consider using this system, if not next semester, then when I begin my own teaching practice. 

On a more meta level, it was great to get such a substantial response in such a short time. I will definitely be keeping track of Chris's work and probably drawing on him as a resource again in the future.

Student podcasting

A few weeks ago in Ed Tech, we were treated to a truly excellent "Tech Tools in Use" presentation by the podcasting folks. I was quite skeptical going in because podcasts are something I struggle with personally a lot. There's only one particular type of situation in which I can fully focus on and enjoy a podcast: when my eyes are occupied in a fairly mindless task. The best example is when I'm driving. Driving is automatic enough that I can process the information in a podcast, but it requires my full visual attention so I don't let my attention wander. Another way I can listen to podcasts is by playing a fairly automatic game (Bejeweled is a favorite). But the fact is that podcasts are just not a very efficient or appealing way for me to gather information.

That said, I wish I did like podcasts more, because they can be really amazing! A series that I have particularly enjoyed is called the Naked Scientists, where some charming narrators (with delightful British accents) break down the latest science news by going straight to the source: journal articles and scientists. They talk about the actual data in the papers, and they often interview scientists directly about the work. This is aimed at a perfect level for me - I get the big picture without the horrible reductionism and hyperbole that goes into much of popular science media.

So that's the perspective on podcasts that I brought to this presentation: not the biggest fan of the medium itself, but really impressed by the ways it's been used. And I was immediately impressed as well by the creative ways the presenters chose to make example podcasts that could be used in the classroom. It was even more impressive that they had all just taught themselves the tools and created these polished, professional sounding productions. I can see easily how podcasts could be a really interesting tool in classes like history or English, where spoken narratives can be so powerful.

I do have to stretch a little more to think about how the tool could be used in a science classroom, but I think it's possible. I probably wouldn't go for making podcasts of lectures, just because so much of science (and math, my minor) is visual and needs to be seen while being described. But an application that I think could be potentially quite powerful is having students create their own podcasts. This could be a group project where students are assigned some topic and they need to create a podcast to teach their peers about the topic. This podcast could be played to the class and used to prompt a discussion in which material provided by students is the catalyst. Students love to talk and I think this could be a really cool way to harness that particular teenage impulse. It would also let those who are so inclined to tap into their creative sides and really get into the spirit of making a mock radio show or including sound effects. Given that I have students who are actually Radio/TV majors at Detroit School of the Arts, it would give them a chance to shine and perhaps engage enthusiastically with the material of chemistry. It also takes away the pressures of something like a class presentation; students have the opportunity to think carefully about what they want to say and then re-record if they mess up in some way. From a teacher's perspective, having a record to listen and re-listen to in order to closely and carefully evaluate their thinking could be quite valuable.

So thank you to Rachel, Griffin, Steve, and Mike for an engaging, entertaining presentation. You've given me some real food for thought!