Twiducate and Persuasive Feedback

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a long time! It was report card season and shortly after that life just got super busy in my classroom, tonight I finally have some down time and want to get back to the blog. I want to thank everyone who is reading/supporting/pinning my blog. It's the best feeling in the world!

So what is new in Room 108?

The newest activity we've taken on is using Twiducate, a program created by a teacher from Blenheim Ontario, you can follow him on Twitter at @MrAspinall. The program I stumbled upon after it was suggested on a resource board I follow. I had spoken to my students about twitter after we looked at a reading from Teaching Kids News (one of my favourite resources at the moment!) about protests, including Idle No More. We discussed how the movement got its name and what the movement is truly about. We also discussed how various movements can be confused because of the media and what we have to do to ensure we get the whole picture. Long story short we ended up discussing hashtags on Twitter, leading to a discussion about social media and pros and cons as students. After mentioning Twitter I harmlessly mentioned Twiducate and that I was considering using it in the classroom. Students immediately were hooked and began inquiring as to when this would happen, I signed us up a week ago, sent home a permission form allowing students to bring in phones and other electronic devices to use and dived in! (We are using classroom computers and school netbooks for students who do not want/have an electronic device to bring in).

Twiducate is a twitter like program that creates a "walled garden" where only students in the class are allowed. No outsiders can join, the teacher controls passwords and can monitor all discussion and look up what each student has typed. I set mine to not allow edit and deleting to teach students how their comments and statements on the internet can not be taken back. We have only used it once, allowing students to try it out, with several persuasive prompts to start a conversation. I am in the process of figuring out how I can weave it in to class more often. The good and bad: my students LOVE it, are totally hooked, love that it is a spot for just our class to chat and have conversation. I have been able to explain that comments on Twiducate are similar to classroom discussions. If you wouldn't say it in the classroom then you should not say it on Twiducate. The bad? They LOVE it, if I had a dollar for every time a student asks if we are using Twiducate each day I would be a rich lady! I will keep you posted on how it goes this week!

Okay here is the part of the post with the pictures! (The next time we use Twiducate I'll post some so you can check it out :) ) We have been working very hard on our persuasive writing. I have really been making an effort to use the gradual release of responsibility. We examined persuasive writing pieces, created a success criteria for our persuasive writing and then created a rubric for our persuasive writing. Sidebar: A great way to create a rubric that students take ownership in! So the next step after co-writing a persuasive letter was to write one in groups, students used their success criteria and rubric to assist them, you saw those letters in an earlier post. So the next step was to write one in pairs (or the odd group of 3). Students were again reminded to use the success criteria and rubric as a guide. Groups were allowed to choose whatever they wanted and wrote their persuasive writing either on chart paper or letter size. Groups then handed in their work, I then took the rubric we co created and shrunk it so there was four to a page. I placed the pieces of work around the room, each with a envelope, pieces that were on smaller paper I put in plastic sleeves to keep from ripping. I instructed students to go around and choose 4 other pieces of writing other than their own to mark, using the rubric we had created. After they had marked a piece of writing, they put their rubric in the envelope and placed a checkmark on the outside of the envelope to let people know  how many rubrics were done on that piece. This was to ensure that each work had many "markers."

The next day each group was given their work back along with the envelope of rubrics from friends. Students could also write feedback on the back of rubrics and did not have to sign their names. Students were given time to read over the feedback, and were anxious to see what others thought of their work!

Then students were given a post it each (so one post it per student) to decide on one thing they would change to "bump up" their work after looking through the feedback. Students were then asked to place their finished post its on the smartboard so a discussion could take place about what were the major items our persuasive pieces were missing.

I should point out this less than half my class's post its on the board. It went really well, we had rich discussions about what we are doing well and what we are forgetting!

This feedback activity was two weeks ago and we are one week in to our final work, we've had two days in the computer lab to look for info to back up our opinions, and 2 days of writing workshop, students are to have their argument organizer completed for tomorrow as we move on to the draft/conference phase of writing.

I will admit that it has been difficult to be patient with the process. I will be the first to say I am usually someone who probably taught writing styles too quickly and let students be independent too fast. After speaking with a colleague with their approach I am taking a much slower approach but I am finding the quality of work is much better and students have a much better understanding of what their work needs to achieve a Level 3 (B).

I'm sorry about the big break from blogging but I'm hoping that life has got a little more calm and I can get back to sharing my classroom adventures!

Have a great week :)

Kathleen :)

PS I would love to hear any ideas you have for Twiducate or feedback for your writing program!

RESET

Last week was a long week. . .which was disappointing because it started with a snow day! I wasn't sure what had got in to the munchkins but the week went from bad to worse. By Friday they had rotary with two other teachers that went very badly. Instead of going to gym right away I thought we needed to have a little community chat time. I spoke to my class about how to treat others in the classroom, other adults in the school, other people in the community. . . I spoke to them about how much I love them and tell my friends and family about how amazing and wonderful they are in every thing they do. I spoke to them about how they are awesome kids and their behaviour that day was disappointing to say the least.

I hate to have those chats with the kids. You realize there are kids sitting there who had nothing to do with it, and other kids who you wonder if they took anything in.

Sometimes when I give little pep talk/"I'm disappointed" speeches I'm not really sure where I'm going, this was one of those times. At one point I said "We're going to start over." I mentioned that it doesn't always happen in life but we would start again on Monday. We would "RESET." We finished our conversation and quietly walked down to the gym. Slowly students came up and whispered "I'm sorry for disappointing you Ms. Bond" and after several students, one put up his hand for a high five and I said "RESET".  After that moment I high fived each student, repeating "RESET." It was so random but meant so much to me and the kids and our little classroom community.

I knew that today could go just like last week had so I met them at the door today with another high five and an echo of "RESET." I might start all my days with high fives now, it was such a small gesture the word and the high five together but the kids bought in and we had a wonderful day today! Days like today remind of why I do what I love :)

Okay now for a couple pictures to even out the overly emotional post for today!

This first pic of an idea given to me by literacy coach Jackie Sweeney, we read the book We Are The Elders and as a "Before" activity for shared reading I colour scanned the pictures and broke students in to pairs to comment on whatever came to mind looking at their picture, writing down ideas all around the picture. They then presented their ideas to the class. It resulted in a rich discussion and I loved students' expressions when they were given their picture and they exclaimed, "YES, WE GOT A GOOD ONE!!!"

 

This next picture is a variation on an idea taken from Jennifer Runde's Site "Runde's Room" (see button on right hand side). The idea is simple, you look at a piece of work for peer feedback or teacher feedback and anything that is done well or deserves praise is highlighted in yellow or "Glow." Then you use green highlighter to highlight parts for "Grow." Grow meaning areas for improvement. I loved the idea but didn't have yellow or green highlighters so we decided to use neon post its I received in my staff sock from a teacher elf I still have not figured out! We posted all our persuasive letters on wind turbines around the room. I reminded them to use the success criteria we already had posted and had students fill out two GLOW and GROW post its to put on someone else's work. Myself and then an occasional teacher the next day discussed the post-its and we levelled each piece of work during a discussion. I glued the post its on to the letters to ensure none would fall off in the hall. I was really happy with the conversations students were having about their group letters and even more delighted to see the debate over what changed one piece of work from a Level 2 (C) to a Level 3 (B)!

 

 

 

Have a great week everyone :)

 

Kathleen