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Getting Credit for Your Students Favourite Interests - CHILS 2015
- 1. GETTING CREDIT FOR YOUR STUDENT’S INTERESTS Mandi Sharkey BA MST Sharkey Support Services This presentation can be found at:
- 2. WHY ARE WE HERE? To understand what curriculum is asking us to do To exchange ideas about meeting curriculum and your student’s interests
- 3. WHO IS THIS MANDI ANYWAY? Certified teacher, Masters in Science of Teaching 10 years in classroom and homeschool Called to work with special learning needs Making curriculum work for her student’s interests every day
- 4. ALBERTA CURRICULUM: I CAN…
- 5. Language Arts Narrative Story Feedback for others Editing and revising Social Studies Geography (location, climate, language, landmarks) Culture (festivals, food) History (settlement, treatment of natives, involvement of the church) Science Conservation Ecosystems (rainforest) Math Perseverance/Prob- Solving Logic/Physics Angles
- 7. BLOGGING… Any subject you want! It is a showcase! Language Arts Social Studies Science Math Focus on communication with others Teach Share Comment on other blogs #comments4kids
- 8. Math Surface Area Area Nets 3D Objects Volume Language Arts Blogging How-to Verbal Communication Science Structures and Forces Physics Health Survival (Outdoor Ed) Personal Health Decision Making Skills
- 10. PERSONAL PROJECTS… Planes & their uses in War Imaginary universes Horses Dog Training & biology Dinosaurs Quilting Video Games Song Lyrics (poetry, history & meaning)
- 11. PARKING GARAGES Science Succession Biodiversity Ecosystems Structures and Forces Math Multiples Logic
- 12. WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING TO INCORPORATE?
- 13. THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING CHILS 2015 To contact Mandi – check her out on Twitter: @SharkeySupport Facebook: www.facebook.com/sharkeysupport Web: www.sharkeysupport.com Email: mandi@sharkeysupport.com I am sure you have gotten some great value from our speakers today, please enjoy the rest of the day! You can find today’s presentation at:
Notas del editor
- Welcome! I am excited to be able to share some of the projects my students have done over the last 5 years that I have been homeschooling and they align with Alberta Curriculum!
- Getting Credit can take some creativity and can draw on a wide variety of resources, but it can be done.
- Before I was a teacher – I was a junior policy analyst with the CRTC. So I made a living of taking legal and government's close worded documents and translating it into English… sometimes it feels as though curriculum is the same thing. My Masters is actually K-6 but here in Alberta you can teach K-12 as long as you have your certification so I have taught at all levels except kindergarten, unless Sunday School counts.
- Argyll, Edmonton Public’s homeschooling arm, has put out a set of I Can statements that can help translate curriculum for parents – but they are only available grades 1 to 8. High School curriculum, especially electives or options, I find more straight forward to translate into English. Some of the areas from K to 12 that are really open to incorporating special interests are language arts and social studies. When it comes to a student’s preferred product or output, Math and Science lend themselves well to different creative pursuits. LA – Skills focused so it is open to any subject matter Social - some years are more defined than others, it doesn’t mean that their aren’t tie ins and cross over from science, math and language arts Math and Science – although the topics are defined, the way you arrive at them or the product your student creates can work on everything from health (personal life management) to Language Arts to histories and ethical debates related Today I would like to show you how some of my student’s strongest interests have become larger than just their interest, and cover a lot of curriculum at the same time. Just a caveat – I have no problem teaching my student curriculum that doesn’t strictly fall in their grade level depending on their interest and ability.
- One of my students at the time had a tendency to fixate or obsess about different video games. In this case, I had started them out on the smartboard playing Angry Birds during a math unit on angles and it became an obsession. To redirect and focus, I was lucky enough to connect it to an upcoming movie & game release – Angry Birds Rio. In order for my students to attend the movie, Rio, they had to complete a multitude of tasks. It all began with a trailer for an app – Angry Birds Rio. I chose that trailer because it fed directly into their love of Angry Birds AND it had a better story line to build from. We used this app as the beginning of a narrative story. We collaborated to write the beginning of the story, and then they each developed their own story from there. But between showing them the trailer and building their story – we did a lot of other activities that would help meet curriculum and engage their interest: Social Studies: We learned about Rio the city, its landmarks, festivals and culture. Language Arts: We used images from Rio and the trailer itself to discuss setting and describing words to enhance our writing. Social & Science: From there we also learned more about Brazil and its environment, including the rainforest and threats to it. When they were actually done writing the story, we were back to LA goals. They read each other’s learning how to give feedback and help each other revise. All the while, during any break we had, we played Angry Birds together discussing possibilities for solving the problems presented, learning strategies for personal frustration tolerance and how to address math problems that are frustrating us… particularly when items didn’t fall the way they anticipated. I did this with grades 3 to 5 – so we covered curriculum at all those levels in LA, Science, Math, Social Studies and it took us a month leading up to the movie release.
- Blogging is great for my students – this year alone we have used it to represent, explain and even examine critically our beliefs, knowledge and interest in a wide range of topics. Although Kidblog may not be for one family with one homeschooled child – I do manage the blog for 7 to 12 students grades 5 to 12 at the moment. The upside to kidblog is the “walled garden” environment – meaning someone can’t just search us, but I can put our address out there to people I want and I can approve the comments to reduce spam, bullying, negativity etc. Some of the topics that we have blogged about this year: Multiplication, Science, Health/Personal Beliefs, Decision Making skills – not to mention the LA curriculum goals covered.
- A common fascination is Minecraft, and I have found that some kids integrate it naturally whenever they find a chance, but if you can present it to them as an option, boy, does that ramp up creativity and perseverance. I have the added bonus of Minecraft blocks that help add to the experience and draw kids out of their devices. It is interesting discussing with them even the contrasts with the world around them, why everything is not actually made of cubes in the real world, and how forces work differently on different shapes. Something hands-on like minecraft or lego and your discussions, attempts at structures, collecting resources or survival scenarios can hit a lot of different curriculum areas. It covers areas like Initiating and Planning, Analysing and Interpreting and can even cover Communication and Teamwork – all science skills, but planning and communication/collaboration and teamwork are also language arts (section 5) and social studies (social participation as democratic thinking). I have had discussions about personal health and nutrition in the context of minecraft as well – animals just turn themselves into food… really? But Survival techniques fall into middle school Outdoor Education as well – how do you tell directions in Minecraft, make a fire, shelter & needs and wants for survival also helps with most levels of social studies but particularly Kindergarten, grade 6, 7 and even grade 5 if you can connect it early settlers of Canada (which isn’t really a stretch) There are numerous ways to get involved in Lego Contests as well that helps the student think about their audience (LA/Social Studies), follow rule requirements (Social Grade 6, LA, Health) and most of all plan ahead to meet a deadline while considering the rules and their audience! (LA & Health) All levels of the Health Curriculum discuss personal decision making – which is rampant through Minecraft & Lego AND if you can have discussion or write about opinion or justification for their actions it hits all levels of Social Studies skills as well.
- My students spend time in each unit exploring something that piqued their interest and allow them to go in a direction of their choosing. We use a project management set up, not only to orient kid toward 21st century skills, but for kids with executive management needs, it can be a life saving strategy. I help them diversify their product choices or output and we go over the the needs of the unit after they have picked their topic and output to see what they can achieve or have already achieved. I find my kids are great at finding ways to show what the curriculum wants on their own. They really like knowing why they have to do something. Some of our personal projects have also been as the result of wanting to something bigger and better that we couldn’t find an academic purpose for: watching a blockbuster movie that doesn’t have a novel attached or going go-karting or something else in the community – but those reward projects let us hit other areas of curriculum that may have been missed here or there AND areas of interest that aren’t strictly in the curriculum – Like JFK or studying the World Wars more in depth, even mechanics and engines at a younger age then high school. The dinosaur project, I was particularly proud of manuvering to fit Grade 11 Social Studies Curriculum. I havd an autistic student completely uninterested in the traditional topics covered in grade 11
- SABRINA SAYS ADD SOMETHING ABOUT THE SOCIAL/COMMUNICATION/STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT/CONTINUING CONVERSATION. I have one student with a very particular interest – Parking Garages – ones with elevators, ramps and potentially even for flying cars. I got to make a connection to Succession and Biodiversity in the first unit of grade 7 Science – Ecosystems. To get my student to explain how invasive species can impact an ecosystem or change an ecosystem… we talked about how a series of trucks in smart car parking spots would change the ecosystem of the parking garage. We discussed how the ecosystem of a parkade could be improved (he thought there should be Starbucks) or adding a gas station if the parkade was too many floors without disrupting the ecosystem itself. Timely enough, he is also working on Grade 3 math and multiplication, so the number of pillars per floor and the groups of windows per floor as well as the number of people that can go up and down the elevator to each level. Even the strangest interests and focuses can translate into curriculum… sometimes it takes a couple of tries to relate the two topics.