Phase IV Observations

Implementation Day 1
Activities Observations

 Introduction  First real day with the Kindles in over a year for students, can tell they
 Reviewing are a bit rusty
expectations  Lots of trouble signing in, large chunk of time wasted with login
 Charlemagne issues/passwords/not following directions
background  Kindles require the entire email login to access LMS- ItsLearning,
info confusing for students
 “What is Bias?”  Students hyper-focused on Charlemagne intro, stalled here (at least it
webpage was because they enjoyed the song).
 “Einhardt and  Struggled to follow the steps on the “What is Bias?” page, skipping
Bias” webpage head and/or not completing it, in its entirety.
 Many students needed help, some trouble-shooting with learning
management site
 Most students not finished day 1

Implementation Day 2
Activities Observations

 Research day,  Many students had work to finish from day 1, lower-achieving classes
“Charlemagne really struggling to move past video (maybe remove link next time to
Resources” take away distraction).
 Still on Kindles
 Video sources will not play, claim to be restricted, tried to find work
around with no luck, contacted Tech specialists, former teachers who
used Kindles etc
 Students worked with the articles instead
 Some were confused by the note-taking sheet, were concerned about
getting both sides of the story with each resource (maybe lower-
achieving classes would benefit from a note-taking sheet that only
gives boxes for the side presented)
 Many catching up, less login issues, still a bit behind

Implementation Day 3
Activities Observations

 Finishing  Laptops for the remainder of the lesson!!

research  Login and set up much smoother, some issues with broken laptops, but
 Determining ultimately much easier start
bias of sources  Rearranged room so students face backwards; easier to see what is on
 Making a claim laptops
 Students significantly more engaged than with Kindles
 Able to video videos (learned it was the wireless network the Kindles
use (BYOT) vs the wireless network the laptops use (HCPS) that
 restricted the videos; therefore I could not have predicted that)
 Students using pause/rewind and closed captioning features for videos
 Asking significantly more questions for clarity
 80% of students completed notes and made a claim
 Claims overwhelmingly favor Charlemagne as a villain.

Implementation Day 4
Activities Observations

 Reviewing  ** Added day to accommodate students who were not completed**

notes  Allowed to finish research, determine claim but HAD to submit to
 Picking evidence discussion post by the end of class
evidence to  Required to list claim and three pieces of evidence
support claim  Students still fairly focused, losing it in the last 15 minutes of class (65
 Sharing in min long class)
discussion post  Some struggle to figure out how to submit a new discussion post
(mostly due to a lack of reading directions)
 All students present post by the end of day (!)
 Typing significantly easier than if on Kindles.

Implementation Day 5
Activities Observations

 Responding to  Students given instructions on how to give feedback, what to look for
peers in etc
Evidence  Required to respond to people outside of their class AND with the least
discussion post amount of replies
 Students were engaged, happily did more than required
 On average students replied 6-9 times
 Expected to have many students done early, but almost none were,
they were engaged in the responses (I think this is because of this was
new territory for them)
 Only had two minor issues with inappropriate feedback (nothing hugely
concerning, just not what was expected)
 ** That evening I responded to each post personally. Noted that my
feedback often echoed that of the students (which says a lot about how
well their feedback was). Many students used phrases like “evidence
#1 does not support your claim,” or “nice job, your evidence looks
great.” A number of students replied but with no substantial feedback
(i.e. “good” or “nice”). (maybe give sentence starters, word
requirement)

Implementation Day 6
Activities Observations
  Reviewing ** Was formally observed during this lesson, will add evaluator feedback when
feedback received**
 Finalize  Students were given the chance to review the feedback provided
evidence  Many wanted to respond to their peers, possible future expectation (did
 Work on not think it was necessary for this lesson)
reasoning  Students made changes to evidence as needed, started reasoning
 Many struggled with reasoning, as they often do
 They were reminded that they would be receiving feedback on it and
not to get too stuck on it
 75% of students did not complete the days task- pushed posting to next
day
** Observer notes**
 Provide distinct checklist for students to physically check off each day
to move along slower-paced students
 Tie this checklist to a grade
 Overall great lesson, students highly engaged, great use of
technology/LMS

Implementation Day 7
Activities Observations

 Finish  Students still struggled to finalize reasoning

reasoning  Can tell students are less engaged/possibly burnt out from lesson
 Share on  Only 43 of 86 students shared on post
Discussion post  Unable to get laptops any longer, so I made the cut off to post by the
end of the day
 Unfortunately, not everyone posted
 Already almost two days behind. Decided to utilize this time to do the
video feedback instead of for the CER draft.

Implementation Day 8
Activities Observations

 Give feedback  Back to Kindle use

on reasoning  Sign in was better than the first two days, but still issues with
 Give video remembering the login (as it is not their usual)
feedback  Still some user error when using the LMA (not reading directions,
(teacher) scrolling to far down or not down far enough)
 Students provided feedback to any 6 people they wanted, regardless of
class due to low posting numbers. Students used the remainder of the
time to try and finalize reasoning if they had not done so
 I recorded 43 screencasts of myself reviewing their reasoning (very
time consuming!) Average video 1:30s ec long. Biggest issues were the
reasoning not being long enough (2 sentence min), spelling/grammar,
repetition of reasoning.
 Shared it with them through the LMS for the following Monday

Implementation Day 9
Activities Observations

 Review  Students who had feedback to review were able to read it and listen to
feedback video feedback
 Submit draft in  Students who had video feedback seemed very engaged, asked follow-
assignment up questions/ asked for clarification
folder  Worked on typing (got laptops for this day) CER draft into assignment
folder
 Students really struggled with typing
 Many who had not previously finished wanted to go back to discussion
posts and do those, but I wanted them to do complete the draft since I
would give feedback anyway
 Some struggled with following the steps again, posted in a discussion
thread not the assignment folder etc.
 Clearly some disengagement by day 9- possible suggestions complete
research without technology, complete discussion posts and feedback
as one post instead of two, complete in small groups?
** Decided to take a break from the lesson for the remainder of the week.
Students were audibly thankful**

Implementation Day 10
Activities Observations

 Review teacher  Completed written feedback on all submitted drafts through the LMS
feedback  With the extra time I was able to give more feedback, focused on
 Write final draft spelling/grammar and content
 Students reviewed the feedback and used it to write their final draft (on
paper due to inability to get laptops, did not think Kindles would be
useful for a long typing assignment)
 Again, students were asking clarifying questions/ follow up questions
from my feedback (good sign!)