Y9 Rocket project with Science

My new Year 9 group are using the design process to design a rocket with the science department.

They have had a meeting with their client where he made clear what the expectations are for their rocket designs so they had an idea of a design brief and specification.
Williams blog post here explains it

We has some test rockets to fly so they could see what they were aiming for but we had to wait a week as the weather was terrible.


We then go into teams, came up with team names and while we were waiting for the weather to sort itself out, we did some research about different parts of the rocket and what the different shapes and designs were. Some blog posts here ...   Dallas     Malae     William We did this work in our teams. We spent Friday's lesson trying out different wing shapes, nose shapes and wing to body ratios. In effect, throwing paper aeroplanes all over the class. They had to fill in this template to analyse what was going on with their different plane designs.
Dallas has a blog post about it here.


Our next steps are to make card 3D models then convert these into digital modelling on Tinkercad. I want them to work as teams through the whole process so each team member can be in charge of a different element of the design.
The plan is to print out the designs on the 3D printer and fly them.

Where do I use Maths?

In our CoL meeting at the start of this term, we were asked this question ...

For our next PLG - One key strategy in reading and maths that you know works in your practice
- be specific, what do you do? (Russell is asking other Outreach clusters to do the same.)

We will all commit to trying these out at a Manaiakalani and Outreach level

It has been 5 weeks since then and I was blank about it till this week when I was working with my intermediate classes. They have been designing games and we needed to work out what their requirements were for the board for the game. These sizes will then be put into the laser cutter for their board to be produced.

After thinking about this CoL question, I was quite surprised at the maths that crops up in graphics.

In this example with Year 8, we were working out the size of the centre piece based on the size of the individual board squares. We then had to work out the overall size for the  base square.

With my Year 13 class, we have been doing measuring of large space when we measured the auditorium. Blog post here. We then used this information to make sure the work we were doing was to scale.  We cut pieces of MDF to the correct proportion fro the top of the stage so they could work out how big their design elements were in relation to the position and people.

So I think to answer the original question, I don't actively "do maths" in my lesson but it seems to crop up in the natural course of a design project. When it does, I am sure to point out that "this is where they use their maths skills " .. "maths is not just for maths lessons".

How has my teaching changed since "going digital"?

I was asked an interesting question this week. How to approach the upper portions of the SAMR model in technology. I put a comment on the blog post with a few suggestions and it got me thinking about how my teaching has changed since going digital.

The first time I looked at what I was doing in regards to SAMR was quite a while ago. Blog post here.


Instead of students looking for how-to videos on YouTube, get them to make their own. They can use their chrome books to record video and then edit it together in their YouTube accounts as they don't need fancy editing software to do that and the editing tools in YouTube will be enough.
You could get them to help you build your site in this way - with their own content explaining how to do things - this is then available for you next lot and then they can be improved / replaced. (students teaching students using the tech)

I did this as part of my MIT2014 research. Since then, I have got my students to make their own How-To's about a number of topics.

Team research using Google tools - information and collation from the internet - this is the same information for all of them so why not get them to do it in small teams to give them confidence - the shared spaces on Google can enable this really well - the teams can share folders or individual documents to collate things together. If each team has a slightly different focus, they can then share their research with the whole class and everyone has access to all the research they need.

Google plus communities are a great way to share information / examples etc with the class. They can then share their work into the community and everyone gets to see everything that everyone does. This is a link to my Level 3 community of you want to go and have a look.
Level 3 DVC Community
The other good thing about this is that if you keep the same community going you can collate years worth of work for the students to look through when they join your class.

My students make online portfolios of their design work using Google sites. This enables them to collate three years worth of NCEA work in one place (if they choose DVC at Year 11, 12 and 13).

I have put an example here of a current NCEA Level 3 student. This does not shw his previous work as we have moved to new Google sites this year.

All of my planning is now totally visible in terms of the class Google Site. I remember this being so scary at first and I have to keep reminding myself of that when I am helping someone new to putting it all out there on sites.

I don't think I could go back to photocopying everything for a lesson now after having everything on sites for so long. There are instructions, links to extra information, links to examples, my own examples, literally everything is on there.

The fact that lessons / tasks / skills are now so rewindable is an extremely key point. 

During last year, when my inquiry group was my Year 11 class and I was doing Class OnAir, I experimented with a "Rewind to Remind" section on the class community. I had the video camera always available that year due to doing Class OnAir so it was easy for me to do extra videos of my instructions. I have been slack this year about doing this and need to think about it again as the students found it useful. If I set up the webcam on my desk so it is easily available, this might make me start doing it again.

I don't print out all the research that the students do anymore to send to NZQA at the end of the year for project marking. I send them the links to the student's portfolio sites stuck on the front of their sketch books. I am not totally convinced that they look at them though as last year I used personalised Bitly links to make it easier for them and I could see that there had been zero clicks on the links.
Digital portfolios are also useful when it is moderation time of the year. Links can be sent away for planning and work, so no posting is required.

There have been a lot of changes and it continues to change each year and the technology improves and more things slot into place.

Getting to know my new Tech rotation

This week is the week that the timetable switches round for the final time for the Year 9 and 10 students. They all rotate round to their final tech session for the year.
This means I have to get to know two new classes. This is a difficult time of the year to be getting a new set of relationships going with new classes so I decided to try and make them feel more at home in the classroom. I like to start a rotation by doing a quick getting to know you exercise called "Me".
It is basically a Google drawing with a collage on it full of stuff that they like and do.

I show them my example after explaining whereabouts in England I come from and comparing all the words we say differently due to our different accents.

I usually keep this as an online thing and get them to put them on their blogs, but decided to do it differently today. They shared them with me and I printed them all out onto A3 paper and put them up on the wall.

I was surprised at how keen they all were at this happening and were really happy to see their work put on the wall on the first lesson.

STEAM Project with Y7 and Y8 - Week 2

Today for the STEAM session, Robyn supplied the students with long dried pasta, tape, marshmallows, card and 3 paper cups.
Their challenge was to build the tallest tower.

After a quick review of what they learned last week about triangulation, the students got into their groups and made a start.

I gave them a "top tips" session ..

We talked about which one was the most stable and why, and the fact that they can include the triangle as an overall shape not just an add on to another shape.

I did a little bit of help as they went along, by building some structures myself to show them some different ways of thinking about the problem.

At the end of the session Robyn went over with them what had gone really well - 

The team work, the discussions and talk in the teams, the trying of new things, the willingness to fail.

We also talked about what they could consider for next week's challenge, which was looking at and thinking about the usefulness of all the materials they are supplied with.

I gave them two new words to think about before next week - tie and strut.

Starting the Tracking of Change

My last blog post spoke about the need to be able to see if change was happening with my Inquiry group and the need to be able to track that change - link here to blog post

Today we had out first session at trying to do this. The students read through my prepared piece a few times by themselves then they did their recordings.
The plan was to use the Chrome extension mentioned in the last blog post but that plan was soon thrown in the bin when that extension appeared to be blocked on the student Chrome books. (note to self - go see Dev and get it unblocked).
We used my mac book instead. I set it up in my back room and they went out there one at a time to do their recordings.

While they were practicing in the class room, I took a short video as it was very entertaining hearing the repeats and seeing the concentration.

Here is the tracking sheet for this so far ... the girls were not in today. The colours indicate whether I have completed it or not and what I have to catch up on. Link here

Inquiry Question 10 and 11

Describe how you will collect information about the implementation of your changed practices/intervention (so it is clear what you doing differently)

Describe how you will keep a record of each of the above in a manageable way (‘cos you won’t otherwise remember all your many micro-decisions and why you made them)

I had a very profitable meeting with Fiona Grant today. I wanted to check in with her after our last CoL meeting in regards my next steps in my inquiry.

We talked about what those measurable steps could be so that any changes in achievement could be seen in the work of my students.
We also discussed how I had noticed changes in the students presentation quality and confidence in the three check points that there have been already. These were noted on my blog but I need a consistent way of recording and assessing change.

Inquiry Group - Baseline presentation

Year 13 Client Presentation

Matariki Presentation

These are the decisions that I made today in relation to Inquiry questions 10 and 11.....

• I will check in with my students approximately every two weeks (possibly weekly, this is all new!!)
• We will use the Alice Keeler Webcam Record chrome extension or Screencastify to mainly focus on recording their voice. 
• They will prepare and read out a 30 second explanation of what ever work they doing at the time of recording. 
• The focus will be on use of appropriate vocabulary, clear and coherent explanations that make sense, confidence and clarity of verbal presentation.
• I will save all of their recordings as links on a spread sheet.
• I will use a marking grid to check off the attributes they have shown and how well they have shown them.

The first practice of this when we start will be this example that I have put together.

They will practice this a couple of times then make a recording.

Here is the rubric that I will use to check their recordings against.

30 Second Ted Talk Checklist

	0	1	2	3	4
Can you hear what they are saying cleary?
Do they use subject specific vocabulary?
Does what they are saying make sense?
Do they use topic specific vocabulary in a way that in clear and coherent?
Do they speak in a measured, timed way so you can hear each word?

I have included all of this on the class Google Plus Community so they know it is coming up and they have access to all the information and documents.