Our Film Studies 101 project was a major bust. My AVID students, as motivated as they should be, were very unmotivated. They didn't complete assignments outside of class so they were rarely prepared for what we were going to do inside of class. That wasn't the real problem though. I think the Apple Curriculum would have worked well if our school was a little farther from the ice age where technology is concerned. Our project may have gone a lot better if we had about 4 video cameras for the student-groups to use. That way they could all film at the same time. Then, if we had at least 4 powerbooks, all of the groups could have edited at the same time. This would have left very few students idle and it would have kept me from having to do so much work to fill in the gaps. Be careful though. The Apple Curriculum is designed for use as a semester long class so you have to trim it way down.
Lessons to be learned from this: 1) Make sure to choose a topic that you know well or that is easy to learn quickly, 2) make sure that you have sound and adequate technology, 3) be sure to choose a topic that requires a lot of rigor, preferably something that requires a midterm exam, a final exam, and a term paper, and 4) find a way to get a lot of buy in from your students. Having your students participate in a mock college class shouldn't be more work for you than it is for them.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Film Studies 101 - An AVID Mock College Class
This has been an interesting venture so far. I've done this before, but this time I wanted to do something a little different ... something fun. The first time I created a mock college course for my AVID students, it was to help my students understand the type of behavior that would be demanded at the post secondary level. The students were a little unruly and I wanted to change their behavior. This time I chose to use Apple's Movie Making Curriculum as the basis for my course.
My first step was to decide how to complete the activities in the 12 weeks that we have left. Needless to say, we aren't doing every activity. Next I created a letter to send home to parents in order to let them know what we were doing, why, and that if their student was ejected from the class then he/she would be out for good (just like college) and would flunk the project. The project is worth 25% of each student's grade. The students and I had a little discussion about the difference between being in a college class vs being in a high school class. I let them know that they would be treated like college students. This means that I will allow little things like eating in class (within reason) and that students needing to use the restroom will be allowed to just get up and go (without a pass! oh my!). I then went to surveymonkey.com and created a fake registration form for the students to use in order to register for the class. It was interesting to see that little things, like making the amount of units enrolled in match the number of classes signed up for, were not obvious to them. I also found a worksheet online that is normally used for teaching students how to write checks. Once registered, each student received a set of 3 checks to be used to pay their registration fee and purchase their text (A Student Guide provided with the Apple Curriculum). I charged each student $971 for taking 6-9 units, $1400 for taking 10-15 units, a $50 late fee if their permission slips were turned in late, and $85 + tax for the text. Each student also received a course syllabus which they are expected to follow.
I've found that I have to do a little improvising to make the course flow a little better. The curriculum doesn't give much information about movie making basics so I used information I learned from reading Making Real Life Videos by Matthew Williams. I also showed the students a couple of videos on filmmaking techniques that I found on YouTube.
It's been a challenge so far just to keep the students busy enough during the class sessions. They are already learning the hard lesson of what happens when you don't take the time outside of class to do assignments. I want them to learn now that the reaction of a college professor will be much different than that of a high school teacher.
By the way, the instructor for this course is Dr. Stephanie Grebleips (hmmm!). I won't answer to any other name during the "college" class sessions nor will I answer any questions that pertain to our regular class. Some of the students are really getting into it too. When a student told me that she needed to pay her fees, I told her that she needed to go to Villero Hall (I named all of our buildings after their other teachers). When she asked me where that was (she had no idea what I was talking about), her classmate played along telling her "Go down that street about 3 blocks. If you get to the stop sign, you've gone too far."
Check out our class website.
My first step was to decide how to complete the activities in the 12 weeks that we have left. Needless to say, we aren't doing every activity. Next I created a letter to send home to parents in order to let them know what we were doing, why, and that if their student was ejected from the class then he/she would be out for good (just like college) and would flunk the project. The project is worth 25% of each student's grade. The students and I had a little discussion about the difference between being in a college class vs being in a high school class. I let them know that they would be treated like college students. This means that I will allow little things like eating in class (within reason) and that students needing to use the restroom will be allowed to just get up and go (without a pass! oh my!). I then went to surveymonkey.com and created a fake registration form for the students to use in order to register for the class. It was interesting to see that little things, like making the amount of units enrolled in match the number of classes signed up for, were not obvious to them. I also found a worksheet online that is normally used for teaching students how to write checks. Once registered, each student received a set of 3 checks to be used to pay their registration fee and purchase their text (A Student Guide provided with the Apple Curriculum). I charged each student $971 for taking 6-9 units, $1400 for taking 10-15 units, a $50 late fee if their permission slips were turned in late, and $85 + tax for the text. Each student also received a course syllabus which they are expected to follow.
I've found that I have to do a little improvising to make the course flow a little better. The curriculum doesn't give much information about movie making basics so I used information I learned from reading Making Real Life Videos by Matthew Williams. I also showed the students a couple of videos on filmmaking techniques that I found on YouTube.
It's been a challenge so far just to keep the students busy enough during the class sessions. They are already learning the hard lesson of what happens when you don't take the time outside of class to do assignments. I want them to learn now that the reaction of a college professor will be much different than that of a high school teacher.
By the way, the instructor for this course is Dr. Stephanie Grebleips (hmmm!). I won't answer to any other name during the "college" class sessions nor will I answer any questions that pertain to our regular class. Some of the students are really getting into it too. When a student told me that she needed to pay her fees, I told her that she needed to go to Villero Hall (I named all of our buildings after their other teachers). When she asked me where that was (she had no idea what I was talking about), her classmate played along telling her "Go down that street about 3 blocks. If you get to the stop sign, you've gone too far."
Check out our class website.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
The Best Team Building Activity Ever
As part of our final day of class, I had my AVID students participate in a team building challange. I used some of the same activities with both my freshman and my sophmore/junior classes. We started with an alphabet search. I split the students into 6 teams and each team had 15 minutes to find an item that began with each letter of the alphabet. The items had to be personal so the students couldn't run around and get things off of other people. My students were pretty creative, using a pair of "optical lenses" for the letter O, Zyrtec alergy medicine for the letter Z, and a student named Yang Ming for the letter Y. However, my favorite team building activity of all time is something I called The Great Marble Race. I had used the activity with my freshman earlier in the year, but I knew that the older students would love it too. I had someone cut several pieces of PCV pipe in half lengthwise. I combined the 6 teams to form 2 teams. Each of the 2 teams had 6 pieces of PCV pipe and one marble. There goal was to get the marble to roll through the pipe while the team traveled from one end of the cafeteria to the other. The marble could not stop or drop onto the floor or the team had to start over. Since each team had about 11 members, each team member had to pass their PCV pipe after the marble passed through it to another team member and all team members had to participate. It's interesting to watch the students and see the leaders emerge. They all get so determined to win that they start to do a much better job of listening to each other and cooperating. I usually stop the group after the first few tries to debrief and discuss what the students see and hear and what they feel they could do better. After that I leave it all up to them.
If you try this, be sure that you have at least 30 minutes. 45-60 minutes might be better so that you can debrief during the activity and then reflect at the end. Be prepared, however, to do a lot of laughing.
If you try this, be sure that you have at least 30 minutes. 45-60 minutes might be better so that you can debrief during the activity and then reflect at the end. Be prepared, however, to do a lot of laughing.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
TONIE Awards A Big Success
Let me preface this with the fact that I did not come up with this idea on my own. That said, this is the best AVID idea ever! I thank, whole-heartedly, the AVID coordinator who gave me the idea during one of our networking sessions (region 3, cohort B). You're an angel, whoever you are! Ok, so here's the idea. Every month my students nominate a teacher that they feel has been particularly supportive. Each student who chooses to nominate a teacher writes an explanation of his/her nomination on an index card (5 x 7). I read them and choose the best explanations from each grade level. I then present the awards during announcements at our monthly staff meetings. Originally, the idea was that the students would present the awards to their teachers. However, getting on the agenda at our staff meetings can be difficult.
We had to give the award a name so I asked the students for suggestions. One student shouted out, "The TONY award!." He started laughing, but to his amazement, I thought it was a good idea. We just had to figure out what the letters in the word TONY would represent. It took us about a week, but we finally decided to spell it differently and came up with Teachers Officially Nominated for Inspiring Education (the for is silent). Feel free to steal or improve on this. I created a certificate, complete with a Lancer logo that I jacked off of our school website (I hope it's not copyrighted). I presented each teacher with a certificate and a $5 Starbucks (that is copyrighted) gift card.
Now for the good part. Your teachers will LOVE this! Ok, now the person who gave me this idea told me that our teachers would love getting the recognition and that the attitudes of the teachers toward the AVID program would change tremendously. I believed her, but I still didn't know. You won't understand until you see the looks on the faces of those tired and dedicated, but underappreciated people. They were so grateful that someone could see that they were doing good. It's funny because I just assumed that they knew that we knew. I will warn you. I did have to tell one our first award winners that he couldn't start crying. (That's right, I said "he"!) At the next staff meeting, when I stood up to present the awards, I heard someone say "Oh yeah! I forgot we get to do this!" I was just a little juiced.
Give this a try. It is so worth it. Make it your own and have fun!
Sunday, March 16, 2008
CHS AVID & Cirque: Our 1st Real Field Trip
In my head, I've been planning this field trip since last year. My program didn't exist last year (a long story), but I first took my AVID class on a similar trip in 2005. Since we went to San Francisco last time, I thought we would go to the San Jose area this time. So here's what we did. We visited 2 colleges, Stanford University and Santa Clara University. I looked online before we went to see what the procedure would be to get a guided tour of the campuses. Here's tip #1: Stanford charges $75 for a private tour and you have to have a private tour for a group of 50 or more. Create your own tour. I had already planned to have the students participate in a scavenger hunt on one of the campuses so I came up with another activity for Stanford. My co-worker (and best friend) accompanied me on the field trip and she g
ot in contact with one of our Cordova grads. He took our juniors to his 11am Sociology class. They found the class pretty interesting and amazing enough, it wasn't too overwhleming for them. We split the sophomores into 2 groups and gave them a list of things to ask students on campus about (see below).
They had to find out the following:
1. The best places to eat, both on campus and off
2. clubs and organizations on campus
3. what the dorms were like
4. traditional campus activities and events
5. the Stanford/Cal rivalry
6. where students go to get extra help
7. the best places on campus to study
8. upcoming events
We split the freshmen into 2 groups and gave each group a list of sights on campus to get information about. Go to Stanford's website and click on the Campus Sights link for a list of these places. All groups will present reports to the class when we return from the break.
We ate lunch on the Stanford campus and then headed for Santa Clara University. We split the students into 4 groups, gave each group a disposable camera and a list of things to take pictures of. I usually do these things on the fly so I'll try to recreate the list below.
1. a professer
2. a student studying
3. a college textbook
4. the music hall
5. a Santa Clara University athlete
6. the admissions office
7. someone wearing a Santa Clara University sweatshirt
8. the college mascot
9. any library
10. the student union
11. associated student services
12. the school newspaper
13. a coffee house
14. a cafeteria
15. a dormitory
16. a sign advertising an upcoming campus event
17. someone in a frat or sorority
18. a monument
19. the bookstore
20. the math, science, psychology, or history department
My group took a picture in front of the career center for bonus points since our career center coordinator was also a chaperone.
Our final stop on the trip was at the Grand Chapiteau in San Jose to see a matinee performance of Cirque du Soleil's Kooza. This was undoubtedly the highlight of the d
ay. If you don't already know this, Cirque du Soleil shows consist of acrobats, jugglers, and clowns combined with a storyline. Cirque comes to Northern California every 2 years. This show was more than worth the $49.50/student that we paid. I'm hoping that my students will see that when a human being can do the things that they saw in the show, getting good grades and getting into college should be a piece of cake.
Ok, now for some tips.
Tip #2: Start raising money early. As I stated before, the cheapest tickets will run about $50/student and $55/adult. There is also a $50 service charge for services. Don't forget to purchase a ticket for your bus driver. I plan to start raising money next year for the following year's trip. With any luck we'll have 6 sections of AVID students and that's a lot of tickets.
Tip 3: Try to order your tickets at least 30 days in advance. If you do, you'll have 30 days to pay and you can pay by registered check. If not, someone will have to pay for the tickets on their credit card and then get reimbursed.
Tip #4: If you have students sit in on a lecture, leave enough time for them to see the campus too. I didn't really think that part through since I had already planned for the students to see 2 campuses.
Tip #5: Be ready to see your students in action. My squirrely little freshmen were amazing. The leaders really came out. I got to see relationships that I didn't know existed and I had conversations with students who barely speak at all in class.
This is my favorite field trip! Of course, I have yet to plan the trip to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.
ot in contact with one of our Cordova grads. He took our juniors to his 11am Sociology class. They found the class pretty interesting and amazing enough, it wasn't too overwhleming for them. We split the sophomores into 2 groups and gave them a list of things to ask students on campus about (see below).They had to find out the following:
1. The best places to eat, both on campus and off
2. clubs and organizations on campus
3. what the dorms were like
4. traditional campus activities and events
5. the Stanford/Cal rivalry
6. where students go to get extra help
7. the best places on campus to study
8. upcoming events
We split the freshmen into 2 groups and gave each group a list of sights on campus to get information about. Go to Stanford's website and click on the Campus Sights link for a list of these places. All groups will present reports to the class when we return from the break.
We ate lunch on the Stanford campus and then headed for Santa Clara University. We split the students into 4 groups, gave each group a disposable camera and a list of things to take pictures of. I usually do these things on the fly so I'll try to recreate the list below.
1. a professer
2. a student studying
3. a college textbook
4. the music hall
5. a Santa Clara University athlete
6. the admissions office
7. someone wearing a Santa Clara University sweatshirt
8. the college mascot
9. any library
10. the student union
11. associated student services
12. the school newspaper
13. a coffee house
14. a cafeteria
15. a dormitory
16. a sign advertising an upcoming campus event
17. someone in a frat or sorority
18. a monument
19. the bookstore
20. the math, science, psychology, or history department
My group took a picture in front of the career center for bonus points since our career center coordinator was also a chaperone.
Our final stop on the trip was at the Grand Chapiteau in San Jose to see a matinee performance of Cirque du Soleil's Kooza. This was undoubtedly the highlight of the d
ay. If you don't already know this, Cirque du Soleil shows consist of acrobats, jugglers, and clowns combined with a storyline. Cirque comes to Northern California every 2 years. This show was more than worth the $49.50/student that we paid. I'm hoping that my students will see that when a human being can do the things that they saw in the show, getting good grades and getting into college should be a piece of cake.Ok, now for some tips.
Tip #2: Start raising money early. As I stated before, the cheapest tickets will run about $50/student and $55/adult. There is also a $50 service charge for services. Don't forget to purchase a ticket for your bus driver. I plan to start raising money next year for the following year's trip. With any luck we'll have 6 sections of AVID students and that's a lot of tickets.
Tip 3: Try to order your tickets at least 30 days in advance. If you do, you'll have 30 days to pay and you can pay by registered check. If not, someone will have to pay for the tickets on their credit card and then get reimbursed.
Tip #4: If you have students sit in on a lecture, leave enough time for them to see the campus too. I didn't really think that part through since I had already planned for the students to see 2 campuses.
Tip #5: Be ready to see your students in action. My squirrely little freshmen were amazing. The leaders really came out. I got to see relationships that I didn't know existed and I had conversations with students who barely speak at all in class.
This is my favorite field trip! Of course, I have yet to plan the trip to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.
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