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Showing posts with the label Lesson Design

Generate Instant Pear Decks

  I’ll keep this short as the video explains most of you. Any new educational technology can be complicated to dig into from scratch as you attempt to align it to learning outcomes.  Well, a new feature that Pear Deck has introduced has taken a giant leap forward to help educators do just that.  Before we jump into the new features, if you are unfamiliar with Pear Deck and why my students and I consider it the #1 EdTech tool that helps their learning, check out the video in the previous blog post.   But if you are more concerned with why you should even dive into Pear Deck or learn about this new AI generation of Pear Deck sessions to a learning target, check out the video below. Like I said, I’m keeping it short so you have time to watch the video. If you have questions, please contact me at mohammam@elmbrookschools.org or the Pear Deck Learning team at support@deck.peardeck.com . Also, check out the amazing Stacey Roshan's video on this update. 

Keys to Great Learning

Every teacher has that activity that they look forward to. The activity they know will not simply get students engaged in what’s going on but take risks in their learning. Some teachers have more than one activity. But if you think of the one experience that is really out of the norm, you can usually pinpoint it. This activity for our physics class is marble coasters. It’s the type of activity that disrupts my whole classroom space. It causes students from other classes to peek in as they walk by and wonder what is going on. It causes my AP Physics students to be jealous of my Physics students. In marble coaster construction, students use pipe insulation and other materials to construct a rollercoaster for a marble that must have a minimum number of required obstacles. The 2 major requirements are the number of obstacles and that the marble travel the track successfully. What is interesting is that with minimal instruction, students are in groups and off and running. There are m...

The Fast & The FabLaburios

I’ve got a brief reprieve tonight to write this post so I’m taking advantage of it. Otherwise, it won’t happen until 2019. In our physics classroom, one of the goals is to have students use maker projects to practice the design and engineering process. Some of these projects have included LittleBits powered cars and boats. Most of these projects have been created using materials students brought in by students like plastic cups, CDs, popsicle sticks, and the like. So the ultimate construction process tended to be fairly imprecise. This year our school has a new Fabrication Lab with a variety of different tools which students can use to create. These included (but are not limited to) 3D printers, laser cutter, video production room, and lots of CNC tools for use on woods, plastics, and metals. There are so many possibilities in this space. As this is a new space, our Tech Ed department was looking for classes to be guinea pigs in the space. So, my co-teacher Andelee Espin...