Students creating Video Games from a Christian Worldview

My school has been exploring the world of Project Based Learning.

This year I decided to take on the challenge of having my students create video games and attempt to apply a Christian Worldview to the process.

This won't be easy. It isn't easy for us as adults to navigate how Christ asks us to interact with culture. But it's worth trying to do.

As part of the project I've asked students to prepare blog posts. You can go and see the first results of this here. 

When Sex Ed goes sideways - Necessary Evils

I teach Sex Ed. (I've blogged about it before.)

In my class I do my best to welcome questions. I even have a system so they can ask questions anonymously. Sometimes they're silly, sometimes repeats of what I just taught, and sometimes they push me way outside of my comfort zone.

But I insist on engaging with them. We can bury our heads in the sand and pretend that our children don't have questions, or we can take them on an struggle with them.

Sometime I really struggle with them.

This past week I had a question about divorce. I did my best to answer it, but it didn't go very well. I have students in my room who have lived and are living the story of divorce. I tried to be as sensitive and balanced as I could be. But somewhere something went wrong.

So here I'm going to try to write my thoughts about divorce. I haven't been through one. I've only watched from the sidelines. So take what I say with a grain of salt.

I think that divorce is not part of God's plan for the world. In God's perfect world there will be no divorce. We don't like in a perfect world. Divorce should not be, but sometimes they are necessary. Divorce is a necessary evil.

Let me use some illustrations to get the idea of necessary evils across.

I think that locking someone up for life and throwing away the key is evil and wrong. But sometimes, there are people in society for some reason or another need to be put in prison. Jail should not be, but sometimes is necessary.

I think that all weapons that kill or harm human beings are evil and wrong. But police officers need guns to keep the peace. Soldiers need weapons to maintain our freedom. Farmers need a gun to put down the horse that broke its leg. Guns should not be, but are sometimes necessary.

I think that marriage is two flesh becoming one and what God has put together let no human separate. But sometimes there is abuse or other situations that mean a marriage must end. Divorce should not be, but sometimes they are necessary.

I don't pretend to think that real life is simple. Questions like these I wrestle and struggle with. I often wonder what God sees when he looks at the mess we make of his world. But I know that he is a God of love and that he sees more than I do.

The CEAF debacle

Like many others here in the Christian School community in Ontario I am part of the mess that has become CEAF, OACS, CRA, and a bunch of lawyers. (If you don't know what that alphabet soup of letters means, then this blog post isn't for you. You are welcome to return and visit some other time though!)

I've got an opinion on the mess if you want to hear it.

I understand that CEAF was acting in good faith when they started out on this road. They were doing their very best to find ways to reduce the cost of Christian Education. They were well advised  and made the best decision that they could. It's only in hindsight that it's so easy to condemn them.

So here's what really bothers me. That somewhere in our tiny community were enough to people to put a class action lawsuit together to get their pound of flesh! I had hoped that our Christian community would be better than this.

So here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to grab my slice of the pie! I'm going to grab MY MONEY in both hands. I'm going to hold onto it really tight.

For about one minute. That's how long it's going to take me to write a check to the OACS and donate "my money" right back to them. (If you want to add Bible verses to the comments on this blog about who's money it is I'd appreciate that.)

And that's my challenge to you.

Grab your slice of the pie.

Then give it away.

What exactly is "Enough Instruction"?

I recently received a comment on this blog in an earlier post. I greatly appreciated this comment and it got me thinking about it for days. Here's the first part of the comment:

"Hi Alex, 
I am interested to know how you balance instruction and the flipped classroom format. Do you encounter students who feel that they are not receiving enough instruction? If so, how do you address this?"
Here's how I address this.

Let me illustrate with the stories of two separate students in my math class.

First, let me give a brief synopsis of what a student does in my math class.

They get a document, like this, which lists all the videos and assignments. They begin by watching a video. Then they complete the assignment. Then they check their work with the answer key to see if they go it right. This cycle represents a single lesson. The repeat the cycle for each lesson. Every 1-4 lessons I have them complete what I call an exit slip. It is a quiz that I mark, but does not count on the report card. I also review all their work and check to see that they have been completing things correctly. At any time in this process they can ask for my help and work with me one on one.

Let's call the first student Bill. Bill sits down and gets to work. 2 days later he brings me an exit slip. I check the exit slip. It's perfect. I look through all the work he's done and notes he's taken. They are exactly like I've asked for him to do in the videos. I sign off and he is allowed to move on to the next lesson. 30 second have passed. In 2 days I spend 30 seconds with him one on one. Probably once a week he'll ask a question, or I'll notice a problem with his work. In total during a single week I might spend 5 minutes with him. In and entire week! He easily earns an A+ in math, finishes the entire curriculum 2 months early and starts the next grade's curriculum ahead of time.

Let's call the second student Elliot. Elliot finds math to be a struggle. Actually he finds school to be a struggle. He looses his books and papers regularly, is often in the principal's office, never does homework, you get the picture. He attempts to follow the same process, but he has so many gaps in what he's learned over the years that he needs constant help. Every time I check his work, there's a mistake and something I need to teach him. He often forgets what we did the day before. I spend at least 15 minutes with him every single day, teaching him one on one. Every. Single. Day. All. Year. Long. But at the end of the year he is able to solve an Algebra question.

I would argue that both of those students had "Enough" instruction.

But this requires that we re-think what "Enough" is.

The death of a Teacher

After a recent presentation where I received some negative feedback I've been thinking about change.

One of the thoughts I've had is that some of the changes I'm suggesting are hard because they strike directly at a persons sense of who and what they are.

A year or two ago I had a student in my math class who's dad was a high school math teacher. He did not like my teaching method with the flipped classroom format. He made it pretty clear.

What struck me though was his fear. My teaching method attacked his sense of who and what he was. He described himself as a "Chalk and Talk" teacher. He stood at the front of the room with a blackboard and a piece of chalk and talked. And he was good at it. In this style he was a successful, competent, teacher who did his work well.

My method completely undermined his idea of what a teacher was and made his highly developed skills irrelevant.

I'm not surprised in the slightest by his opposition. I was attacking his very sense of self.

So many of the changes that education needs will do the same thing to many other teachers.

My Flipped Classroom Failure

A few months ago I was leading a workshop at a teacher's convention. I was presenting the work I've been doing in my classroom as I explore the power of video in teaching.

Recently I received the feedback from the participants and while it was mostly positive, some of it was very negative. I fact I was struck by two of the comments I received.

It was pretty clear to me that I must have done a poor job of presenting. Math happens to be the place I've started and the place where I have made the most changes to the way I teach, but it's not the only place. 

If you're curious about how I teach math I created a video for students and parents that explain it.

This is just the beginning:

When the students at my school were using their digital devices poorly I had my class create a video about how they shouldn't be used. 

I'm very particular about how students colour maps for current events and geography assignments so I created a video about how to colour them correctly. 

In history I used a video in order to introduce the research project where I had students creating video to teach their fellow classmates. 

In Bible class I use video to introduce assignments.

In Science I create a lot of videos to show students how to use their tools properly. Every single lab has multiple videos teaching the students how to use things well and I like to do lots of labs.

I find it very powerful in Art class. I'm not particularly good at art, but the videos let me teach so much better. Here's an example of one of my art lessons. Even more powerfully I'm using other people's videos. My students created amazing eyes after watching and following along with this video.

I've even made use of it in PE class. My PE class are so short that I hate spending so much time explaining things so I made this video in order for them to play Frisbee Golf. This was one of my least successful ideas though, not because the video didn't work, but because students couldn't handle the idea of PE Homework! 

Quite frankly, I'd like to go back and redo my entire presentation. I don't think I did a particularly good job this time.

Video is so powerful. I think it's a game changer in education.

But change in education is always difficult.

Harebrained Idea #2

Why do we insist on students being with the same group all year long? Or for that matter all day long?

What if we had more flexible groupings? 

Assuming we followed the idea I posted in Harebrained Idea #1 what if we re-evaluated each student every 3 months or so, and if they had significant progress they moved to a new grouping?

What if we were even more flexible and were constantly assessing and ready to have a student move at any time?

What if the groupings changed depending on the subjects? In math you'd be in one group, and in PE you'd be in another group?

I recognize that the logistics of this would be quite challenging. But let's use an example.

Let's imagine a series of math and PE classes. Scheduling around available gym time is always a struggle. Have the Math and PE classes overlap in time.

Teach math using the Flipped or Blended model of teaching math using online tools. Then you could have every student working at their own pace in math class. 

Create PE classes based on skill level. And these could change depending on the topic being taught in PE. If you have someone who plays on a high level basketball team they could be in the advanced basketball class, but perhaps be in the beginner badminton class later in the same year.

Students leave their math classes whenever their PE class is, but it's not the same students leaving all the time. Math classes continue while PE is going on. Since each student will be moving at their own pace in math class they can just pick up where they left off when they return.

And this is only one example. What about Art, science, music, and more. It wouldn't be easy to figure out how to do it, but it is possible!

More in this series:
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth is
Harebrained Idea #1
Harebrained Idea #2

Harebrained Idea #1

And where would I start?

With the fact that we choose to organize schools around a child's "Date of Manufacture", to steal an idea from Sir Ken's presentation. That the year of birth is the most important thing about our children and so many decisions about our kids are based on the year they were born.

So, I would start by choosing a new metric by which we should decide which student goes where. (I have more ideas about the need to divide students and how we divide them for later posts.)

I think the primary metric we should use for deciding how to divide up students is their reading level. So much of learning is dependent upon the ability to read, and this skill is necessary in many subject areas. (Please note that I said "primary", I think there can also be a role for secondary metrics as well. A topic for a later post.)

If the group of students you are teaching all have a similar reading level it has a significant impact on what you are able to do as a teacher. In our current model the classes I teach can have a reading range that varies from grade 2 to grade 12. This enourmous range makes it very difficult to ensure that the lessons I teach reach every student.

How would we go about determining reading level? I think that one test or assessment tool would be entirely inadequate. I think we should use at least three different tools and that we should spend significant time on it. Something this important shouldn't be determined quickly, which is what we do now.

Here are three suggested components that I believe would be important for determining reading level:

• Use a computerized test perhaps one like this one. (I am not an expert there may very well be better ones.)
• A paper and pencil based test, perhaps multiple choice, but perhaps not.
• An assessment by an expert teacher, to be done last and which will have the most importance.

What's more, I would suggest that the reading level be re-tested frequently and that this decision about where a student is placed not be set in stone. (A topic for another blog post.) We believe that students brains can grow and our school system should reflect that belief.

More in this series:
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth is
Harebrained Idea #1
Harebrained Idea #2

Put your money where your mouth is.

It's easy enough to point fingers and condemn things. I certainly have. I've written here on this blog about how much I want to change the existing structure of our schooling system. I've been heavily influenced by people like Sir Ken Robinson and Seth Godin.

So, I'd like to start putting my money where my mouth is. How would I change school? What would I do differently if I were in charge?

I don't pretend to have all the answers, because I certainly don't. In fact, some of the ideas that I start writing here will undoubtedly be harebrained. But, I think we need to start somewhere.

So, in a series of posts I'm going to call "My Harebrained Ideas" I will suggest some thoughts I have. I certainly welcome your comments and criticism.

More in this series:
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth is
Harebrained Idea #1
Harebrained Idea #2

More to come.

The First Day of School

This morning is my 16th first day of school as a teacher. If I count my years as a student it's the 35th. In about 2 hours my students will walk into my room.

The classroom is ready. Desks, baskets, lockers, books, duotangs, Chromebooks, and more prepared. Lesson plans for every conceivable option. (But of course, there will be options I haven't conceived of!)

All of the years of experience, all the tools and resources, they all boil down to one thing.

Love your students.