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Let Flexibility Lead To Alignment

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  In my previous school district, I was the only teacher teaching a physics course with set, district-wide learning outcomes. These same outcomes were also taught in physics classrooms at the other high school in our district. But at our school, I was one of the 2 physics teachers. The other teacher taught the AP-level physics courses. So, in many ways, I had opportunities to incorporate strategies I believed were best for learners and that I found worked best for them without being seen as out of alignment with anyone in our building. My amazing friend and one of my teaching philosophy goddesses, Katie Novak, stated the following misconception about alignment: All teachers must deliver instruction in the exact same way. True alignment, she says, is about shared goals, rigor, and outcomes. Thank you, Katie! Katie has taught me to truly believe that learner variability is the rule, not the exception. I encourage you to take 10 minutes to listen to Katie Novak explain it in the ...
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Sharing Personal Learning Projects Through Conformity

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Students wrapped up their personal learning project today.  On exam days, our classes met once in the morning and once in the afternoon.  The morning was for sharing and the afternoon for putting all of their learning process pieces together.  I'll focus on reflection in my next post, but it was tough for me to see how I gave students such free freedom in their learning but dictatorial control in their sharing.

Morning Session


In the morning, students did a gallery walk of the one sheet posters. The one sheets were created using the student's program of choice.  Many used graphic friendly sites like Canva or Pickochart, but using Google Docs or Draw worked fine for others thanks to the host of formatting available to text and visuals.  During the gallery walk, students walked around the halls with a smartphone or tablet and a pair of headphones.  By looking at a one sheet displayed on the wall, they were informed about the topic and the process of that particular project.

They used the Aurasma augmented reality app was used to view the video students created related to the topic.  The videos were made in only two class periods which is part of my regrets that I'll discuss in the next post.






The results of the one sheet and video ran the gambit in terms of quality of presentation of information, reflection on the process, and overall design.  I know I can learn as much about the assignment from the ones that were good as I can from the ones that didn't meet expectations.  But right now, I can't help but be a little disappointed in some. But it's the first time we've done this so there is lots to learn from.  I've posted images of some of the one-sheets below.

If you want to see the videos attached to the one-sheets below, do the following:
  1. Download the Aurasma app for your smartphone or tablet
  2. Open the app
  3. If the app is in camera mode, tap the magnifying glass at the bottom.
  4. In the search bar type in "bcphysics"
  5. Select "Bcphysics's Public Auras" and follow.
  6. Tap "back" and tap on the purple viewfinder button at the bottom of your screen to scan one of the images below. 
  7. When the concentric circles appear, the video is loading.
Here's a gif version of the process
















Afternoon Session

In the afternoon, students worked on putting all of their documentation together into a page of their portfolio.

On the portfolio page, the collected the following items:
  • One sheet document (The poster)
  • Video explaining what was learned or created
  • Progress and Reflection sheet (this is the document submitted for each check-in) 
  • Human contact sheet detailing a human source used as a resource
  • A sheet detailing the major resources used in the project other than the human contact.
  • Brief reflection providing feedback on a strength and weakness of the design of the assignment




I really think the portfolio was a great place to collect all of this work that went into the project rather than having them include it as a part of the main presentation of information.  Regardless of what I decide on options for future products, I think I will always leave the collating of resource and progress documents find their home in the portfolio as opposed to the major product.

The next post will focus more on reflections on the project.


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