About 2 weeks ago we began our Atmosphere unit, in which I had my students pick which project that they wanted to work on. They could choose from the following:
So, last week was our first week working on projects, and the students had great success in their first week. We laid out timelines for project completions, and we discussed briefly expectations and rubrics. I had them start on a rubric, but decided it would be best to provide it for them.
Best yet, I had great success with my gaming group. They were asked to create a storyline for their game, and in their discussions they decided it would be best to play a game first to see the components of a game before they wrote their storyline.
I agreed to honor their request and I loaded Fate of the World. Though only one student could control the computer (I only have 1 seat) the rest of the kids watched on the big screen and were glued for an entire 20 minutes. At which point, I stopped them and sent them back to creating a storyline.
I think this is a good initial indicator of the possibility of game use being effective. To further the concept, I also implemented a mini lesson with a demo and an iPad game called Bouncy Blue. Students investigated the concept of Density and movement of molecules equating it to temperature. We then went outside and lit a splint on fire to smoke, and watched as the smoke dropped down in the cold temperature and then rose in the warm temperature of the door way.
The last piece that I did not get a chance to implement was to have them draw on absolute board to explain the concept of atmosphere warming and cooling and what the atmosphere molecules do. We will do that this week.
As a final note, I have also decided that it would be very beneficial to attempt a type of gamificiation with the remaining components of the unit and implement them on this wikispaces. I would like to create several levels and tasks within each level to complete, which include reviewing videos demos and activities. Upon completion students will take a quiz on google Forms and then I will use this data to physically graph the students leveling up in the process and share it with them on their page. I think I may be able to embed an updating spreadsheet on it's own so it is seemless in terms of entering scores and progress. And finally this will be matched to standards with an attitudinal survey to determine impact of learning and motivation to learn, which is what I am most interested in.
- Fairbanks Weather: Short term and long term weather prediction and modeling. Students will create a weather prediction blog and video series to share with Hutch news about the weather in Fairbanks, addressing the air quality issues.
- Global Climate Propaganda: Can you change the minds of your classmates and school? Is Global Warming happening? Are we seeing climate change occur as a result of global warming? Students will be asked to create a series of posters to convince their class based on data. Students create a professional data/ informational poster to share the facts about Climate Change by examining data for their own area in Fairbanks. This is then displayed in the school.
- Game Design: Students will play the Tipping Point in which they must understand how global climate change will impact the world. While playing the game, they will read the book and create their own storyline and text-based game to model predictions about weather and climate change.
So, last week was our first week working on projects, and the students had great success in their first week. We laid out timelines for project completions, and we discussed briefly expectations and rubrics. I had them start on a rubric, but decided it would be best to provide it for them.
Best yet, I had great success with my gaming group. They were asked to create a storyline for their game, and in their discussions they decided it would be best to play a game first to see the components of a game before they wrote their storyline.
I agreed to honor their request and I loaded Fate of the World. Though only one student could control the computer (I only have 1 seat) the rest of the kids watched on the big screen and were glued for an entire 20 minutes. At which point, I stopped them and sent them back to creating a storyline.
I think this is a good initial indicator of the possibility of game use being effective. To further the concept, I also implemented a mini lesson with a demo and an iPad game called Bouncy Blue. Students investigated the concept of Density and movement of molecules equating it to temperature. We then went outside and lit a splint on fire to smoke, and watched as the smoke dropped down in the cold temperature and then rose in the warm temperature of the door way.
The last piece that I did not get a chance to implement was to have them draw on absolute board to explain the concept of atmosphere warming and cooling and what the atmosphere molecules do. We will do that this week.
As a final note, I have also decided that it would be very beneficial to attempt a type of gamificiation with the remaining components of the unit and implement them on this wikispaces. I would like to create several levels and tasks within each level to complete, which include reviewing videos demos and activities. Upon completion students will take a quiz on google Forms and then I will use this data to physically graph the students leveling up in the process and share it with them on their page. I think I may be able to embed an updating spreadsheet on it's own so it is seemless in terms of entering scores and progress. And finally this will be matched to standards with an attitudinal survey to determine impact of learning and motivation to learn, which is what I am most interested in.
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