The Golden Record has a collection of songs, sounds, greetings and images of Earth. So, each student chose a song, sound, greeting and picture to represent them. They put all of this information on a website that they created. Next year, we’re thinking it would be a good fit at the beginning of the year. It allows you to learn more about your students, so it would be an awesome getting to know you activity. It is also a great way to embed digital skills with content, especially since our 6th grade students are going 1:1 with Chromebooks next year. Students used Google Suite products (Google Classroom, Google Slides, Google Drive, Google Docs and Google Sites) to share their information. If your school doesn’t use Google products, there are other ways, but Google is the most user friendly. We used the Science Learning through Engineering Design (SLED) structure, mentioned in previous blog posts. The great thing about the SLED structure is that it has both an individual component and team component, so students get to share their voice, but also need to learn how to collaborate with others for a successful product. It’s not just a science project. It also involves language arts, social studies, technology and engineering standards. It is a very student-driven project. We were guides and facilitators. We would begin each day with a recap of what we’d done the previous day and what student tasks needed to be completed. Mission ObjectivesHere are the objectives that students were working on achieving by the end of the project. Content and language objectives are part of the SIOP Model, which is to help educators meet the needs of English Language Learners. I've also found that it's a great way to begin a lesson and allows for consistency. I have different students read the objectives. When planning a lesson, it helps me pinpoint what exactly I want the kiddos to do. I think it also helps the kiddos be in the know. For big projects, I write a set of objectives that I want the students to meet by the end of the project. I don't write separate ones each day. Content Objectives: (What are we going to learn about?)
Day 1> Design brief - Paragraph summary of background information related to the challenge. After students read the design brief, they are able to identify the following elements listed below. > Identification - Problem, Goal, Client, End-user, Criteria, Constraints > Individual Design Chart - 3 potential options for each category (song, sound, picture and greeting) and reason for each option. If you run out of class time for students to work on this, it would be a good homework assignment. It's all about them and their opinions, so it's not something that they need explanation or much support. Day 2> Finish Individual Chart, if needed > Team Brainstorm - The focus was on sharing ALL of their options for ONLY one of the four categories (image, song, sound OR greeting) from their Individual Chart. We told students to choose a category that they were having a hard time narrowing down to one option and would benefit from feedback. Each student had uninterrupted time to share their options from their chosen category. This was followed by warm and cool feedback statements from group members. > Create Google Site -> Each lab group created one Google Site. Each group member got one page on the group site. Students had to create a descriptive title. Add ALL group members as collaborators. Add one page/student in the group. Day 3> Work Time - Individual Design Tasks Students worked through a checklist and had specific components for each category (picture, song, sound and greeting). Students were able to view Screencastify video demonstrations to help them with these tasks, if needed. Day 4> Work Time - Individual Design Tasks continued Day 5The Documentary is available to purchase on the PBS website or you can watch it on Netflix, Amazon or iTunes. We did not have time to watch the documentary, but it is a great resource. It is ~97 minutes long. **Depending on the age of your students, be aware that there are images of the human body and reproductive system at minute 9 and minute . It would be good to watch before the unit, during the unit (15 mins/day) or afterwards as a wrap-up activity. > Reflection - Journal Entry Questions > Web Design Reveal - Students had their website pages up on their Chromebook screens. Students rotated to another group member's seat and reviewed their website page. They were able to listen to the song chosen. Students shared warm and cool feedback on post-its. Warm and cool feedback is something we'd working on before. Warm feedback is a statement that starts with I like how... and provides positive observations of the work . Cool feedback is a statement that starts with I wonder if... and provide ideas for improvement. The best part of the project was reading student reflection after the project. Students answered questions in a Google Form. Some questions were rating scales, but we got the most information from were the open ended questions. I was so impressed with the thought and consideration that they put into their answers: - Before this design challenge I... - After this design challenge I... - How would you describe this project/what you learned/were able to do? Here are some student statements to answer the last question. "This project was definitely one of my favorites this year. I loved how you got to mix your personal life with a awesome space project. I learned how to use google sites, and I learned space and many other things can tie to you in many ways." The logbook, video demonstration links and The Farthest- Voyager in Space Documentary questions will be added to my TPT store.
Peace, love and space exploration, - CAPCOM Conrad
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As we work to prepare our students, the Mars Generation, for the future, here's a hilarious reminder of why we teach and why teaching digital skills is so crucial! A Millennial Job Interview by: LA Reel House Media In case the video clip didn't convince you, I've seen the transformation in student engagement and excitement when you use the right technology tool to enhance a lesson. Thanks to Alex, my fellow Crew member, for sharing Tinkercad - and how she uses it in her classroom to integrate space exploration - at SEEC. I've seen it used before in a related arts class setting, but it doesn't have to reserved for that. I hadn't considered using it myself with kiddos until now. I mentioned it to a sixth grade science teacher and she wanted to try it out, so this week, we planned and co-taught 3D Design in Tinkercad. It was a perfect fit with state standardized testing. It is a great tool with unlimited possibility for your classroom! Being new to Tinkercad and 3D design, I wasn't sure how it would go, but the kiddos blew me away! Tech Tool Feature: TinkercadTinkercad is a free online program that allows users to 3D design. The word tinker means to try to fix something, usually in an awkward manner. CAD is actually an acronym that stands for computer-aided or computer-assisted design or drawing. It depends who you talk to. Autocad is a software used by engineers to create models. It's exciting that now students can develop these engineering and design thinking skills. The great thing about Tinkercad's use in education is that if your students are 12 or younger, they can join your class with a code and you can monitor or view their designs. Older students can send screenshots of their progress, so you can keep tabs on them too. Their designs are also autosaved, so you don't have to worry about the frustration that comes with their progress getting lost. It is designed for 3D printing, however, you don't have to have a 3D printer to use it. 3D printers are great, but they are expensive and printing takes time. The more kiddos you work with, the less time each kiddo can use it. Plus, they learn a lot more from the process of designing and tinkering than they would from waiting impatiently for their design to print. Tinkercad also has step-by-step lessons and projects, so if students want to learn more, they can! Day 1Since it was a new tool, we gave them time to tinker. The first day, students created an account and tried out it's features. They entered the class code and were good to go. Day 2The second day, we gave them a design challenge and provided constraints. We wanted the challenge to be something the kids were familiar with, so we decided to have them create a pencil. I never thought telling kids to create a pencil could get them to work so hard! In addition to using Tinkercad to accomplish this, they went through the engineering design process, persevered, learned from and even taught their peers. It was awesome to watch. Originally, we thought about having kids follow along a teacher-led demonstration or doing a step-by-step direction video, but we decided, we should just let them try and they definitely rose to the challenge! We wanted the kiddos to be able to share their designs with each other, so they learned how to take a screenshot and add the image to a class Google Slide for a Virtual Gallery Walk. As we presented student designs for The Great Pencil Challenge, kiddos were cheering on their classmates, pointing out interesting features and congratulating their work!! Teaching TipThe slide deck was basic. Beforehand, I grouped kids by homeroom teacher and titled the slide with their name. It was in alphabetical order by last name, to make it easier to navigate. I got the idea because this is something that has been done for teacher professional development trainings that I've attended. I would highly recommend doing this, as it can get difficult to manage students adding their own slides when there are so many. Things get inadvertently deleted. Since kiddos had editing privileges, a student actually changed the transitions for a more dramatic presentation. We did review a few digital citizenship skills such as only typing on their slide, keeping backgrounds related and only commenting appropriately. Day 3After seeing the kiddos' proficiency with the tool, we introduced the real challenge...creating a 3D solar system model! Once again, we provided them with constraints. We also gave them a few resources and a rubric. Absolutely Awesome ResourcesAllows students to input numbers and calculate the scale. Allows students to see a visual representation of each planet, its features, compare its size to another planet, see images, video clips, a timeline and much more. Days 4 and 5Rome wasn't built in a day and neither was our solar system! Kiddos were given work time to create and make sure they followed the constraints and included all of the necessary components. As students finished, they self- evaluated and peer-evaluated using the rubric. Students wrote their initials to mark their thoughts on the rubric categories. They also recorded one warm (I like how...) and one cool feedback (I wonder if...) statement. In an effort to collect data and get insight from students, they completed a Google Form. The Google Form was focused on how students felt about their ability to use the different features in Tinkercad, evaluation of the program and how they think that they could use it in the future. ExtensionsThe students are going to create Screencastify videos to take us on a tour of their solar system model. We thought that this would be better than a screenshot because it might be difficult to find an angle that shows their entire model. Plus, we wanted students to be able to explain why they made their design decisions and if they would make changes, if they created another model. We also wanted students to evaluate Tinkercad as a modeling tool. Our solar system is large and complex, so a model can only do so much to represent the actual. Want to Try this in Your classroom?Check out my Teachers Pay Teachers (CAPCOM Conrad's Creations) store! A 5E Integrated STEAM lesson plan titled A Student's Guide to the Galaxy is now available that includes rubrics!! The link to my store is above the logo to the right. There's also an exciting new addition to the Hidden Figures Young Reader's Edition Unit - that I created last year - coming soon, so stay tuned! Peace, love and space exploration,
- CAPCOM Conrad |
AuthorApollo 13 fan. Educator. Lifelong Learner. Third generation Boilermaker. Space Exploration Enthusiast. Collaborator. Click Subscribe to stay updated!Archives
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