Mo Physics Mo Problems

As I reflect on the past school year, I just wanted to share out a couple of the final class portfolios my students made using Google Sites to share out and document the current iteration. Although this semester was altered by the COVID-19 Pandemic, students were still able to complete the portfolio process.  Physics Portfolio The Portfolio created by my physics students has several key pages Home Passions Learner Profile Unit Pages But I think it would be best if we just let Morgan introduce her portfolio. Passion Page On the passion page, students describe themselves in 4 different categories with the help of YouTube videos they embed. Hope & Dreams Favorites in Media Hobbies What I Like to Make Click the Image to Access Morgan's Passions Page Learner Profile The learner page consists of 2 major elements. The Learner Profile developed by Barbara Bray and Kathleen McClaskey in which learners apply a UDL Lens to identify their strengths, challenges and preferences as a learner...

As we find ourselves outside of the classroom attempting to find ways to utilize the digital tools and ask learners to demonstrate mastery on new or past content, I continue to see the power of student portfolios for this task. The portfolio could be used for different purposes, but Google Sites can work as a powerful platform to house this product. Many districts have students create a portfolio that covers multiple years and courses. But in these times, the ability to coordinate this type of project might not be feasible. So, I’ll focus on the use of a portfolio in one course. These purposes center around providing artifacts that could be used to highlight Mastery of Unit Outcomes Mastery of State or National Standards Habits of Mind Learner Strengths or Growth Over Time We’ll get to how this decision of purpose will drive organization. But let’s start with how students can create a new google site. Create sites In the video below, you can see how you can create a new ...

I’ve finished my 9th cycle of Google Site Portfolios with my Physics students. There have been major iterations, for example when the new Google Sites came along. There have also been smaller iterations as some practices in my classroom have changed. Before starting a new batch of portfolios with my students (I have one major change I am making), I wanted to just give an overview of the structure for those interested in using Google Sites for portfolios in their classroom. I've included screenshots of student portfolios. Click on the images to access the student portfolios. End at the Start, the Home Page The home page of the portfolio is not something we do until the very last days of class once the portfolio is complete. In the past I’ve had students write a brief welcome note to the portfolio. As a part of my master’s coursework, I was required to make a portfolio. On the home page of that portfolio, I was tasked with creating a short video introducing the portfolio and w...

In our student portfolio process, collecting and presenting artifact has taken priority. Traditionally, when present an artifact, they explain the artifact to an outside audience and how it connects to the unit outcomes.  One day in class, we were doing an exploration in which they observed a Cartesian diver and hypothesizing how it worked. They recorded these observations and explanations to Flipgrid. Eventually in the unit we would discuss the reasons why things float and sink based on buoyant forces and weight. As we ended the unit, I had an idea based on the fact that students had recorded these ideas in Flipgrid and had access to them via my.flipgrid.com. Many times students look at pretest and post test scores to reflect on growth. So, I had an idea to do something similar but without looking at scores. My idea involved going beyond a simple summary of the activity in the portfolio and an attempt for students to reflect on their past learning to see how their thinking h...

"Are you open to your own evolution as an individual and as a professional?" Couros, G., & Novak, K. (2019). Innovate inside the box: empowering learners through Udl and the Innovators Mindset. Place of publication not identified: published by IMpress, a division of Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc. Five years ago, I was hearing the buzz about student portfolios. So, I took the big leap of integrating student portfolios into my classroom. I was using Google Sites as the platform for creation. It was free and at the time our school was just beginning to use Google Apps for Education (now known as G Suite). If ever there was a case in which I felt like I was innovating inside of the box, this was it. Google Sites had lots of opportunities for customization. Almost any type of media could be added and the look of any part of the page could be adjusted. Students could add artifacts, create blog posts, and comment on each other’s work. The big drawback was that the interface w...

This will be my 6th year using Google Sites for student portfolios. A lot has changed along the way and I’m excited to iterate again with a feature that I feel has always been lacking in my portfolio process. That piece is reflection. Whether it be a portfolio to document growth or a portfolio to showcase the best work, the ability to reflect is essential. But, the ability to provide multiple forms of reflection has been a bit cumbersome. In all the time I have been using Google Sites, typed text responses to prompts has been the form that reflection has taken. After learning more about the amazing things educators are doing with Flipgrid, I have realized that not only is it a tool that can be used for sharing ideas, it is a great tool for video reflection. These video reflections can be kept private between the student and teacher. What I did not realize was how these videos created by students can easily be added to their Google Sites portfolio by the student. So what is the proc...

As 2018 comes to a close, I think of all of the great resources that have helped me reflect on and improve my practice. Although the year is over, I know these will continue to be wonderful resources to come back to in 2019 and beyond to continue growing. Ive inserted single slides so that the links would be live unlike a static image. So, please click on the names to access these amazing resources! Blogs Whether I read them on my phone or laptop, I always love reading the stories of bloggers. Blogs are the number one way I've grown my PLN starting with the first IMMOOC run by George Couros and Katie Martin back in the day. BTW I'm still looking for the best way to curate the blogs that I follow on a mobile device so that I can keep up to date rather than relying on bookmarks and email newsletters. Who's got a good tool for that? Presentations I was lucky enough to attend several conferences this year. I heard some great presentations and had lots of great ...

This is the 5th school year I’ve been having students work with online portfolios. With the help of my co-teaching partner Andelee Espinosa , I have been changing the model up a bit every year to have it make more sense with what what we’re looking for students to communicate in class and to the outside world. This year, I’m working with a new curriculum aligned to Next Generation Science Standards. The unit design is focused on starting with an initial observation we are trying to understand. Throughout the course of the unit, students gain understandings that better help them describe what was occurring in that initial observation. This new unit framework has led me to rethink how we structure our content specific pages in our portfolio. I used to have students separate content pages by overarching outcomes and provide artifacts demonstrating each. With the new unit design, I’m trying out having students create unit pages which track the course of their work in that unit. The...

After school last week, I was lamenting to my co-teacher Andelee Espinosa that there still wasn’t a way to deliver copies of a template of a Google Site to students. She responded that it wasn’t a bad thing. She said that the creation of a website from scratch was actually the kind of skill all of our students should have. The ability to show them how easy it is to create the site was the power of the tool, she said. Andelee was right. That revelation has caused me to think a bit more about how quick I am to make and distribute templates of documents for all of my learners. There is clearly a trade-off I make when I make templates. I need to be a bit more reflective when I make an assignment if I should or shouldn’t distribute a template. When I first learned of Doctopus years ago, I couldn’t get enough of it. It allowed me to make a copy of a template of an assignment for all of my students that was already shared. There definitely are benefits giving students a template to work fr...