Student Blogs

For the last four years, my students have taken six weeks challenges to improve their health, such as eat healthy, give up sodas, visit farmers market, run or walk a fun run, etc.  They take what we are learning in Anatomy and Physiology and connect it to their own life.  

I created a blog that explained the various suggested challenges and students reflected on the challenge via a comment on my blog.  I have no idea why I did it this way...and just recently realized how much more sense it makes for them to create their own blogs instead of commenting on a class one.  

Starting this week, my class will be creating their own blogs, using any format or platform they choose. I am going to recommend blogger, wordpress, or one I heard about at TCEA called bulb, although any digital platform would be fine.  They can still choose a challenge that shows how they take what they learn in class and apply it to their life. The process is the same, but now instead of them all commenting on a class blog, they have each created a digital portfolio of their senior year in high school, at least for anatomy class. 

Here are our current six weeks challenges.  These are recommendations and I am always open to students suggesting other ways to demonstrate the connection between class and life. I love giving them options and letting them choose what sounds most interesting to them.  Instead of a worksheet on food choices, how about visiting the local farmers market and talking with farmers, or instead of doing a cookbook lab that has them all calculate their heart rate after walking up the stairs, how about encouraging them to participate in a local fun run?

I think I say this in every post, but giving students choices on how to learn and what to learn makes a huge difference in what they gain from being in your classroom.  

Here are some of my favorite student portfolios ... all shared with permission :)

Lexi - Senior Year Blog
Jodi - Portfolio of Senior Year
Joyce - Choe Blog

Design Thinking

Allowing my students to design our course this year has increased motivation, learning, and engagement in my classroom.  Not only are students processing information in a new way, but they are given the choice of what to learn and how to learn it.  We take the topics they are interested in and find ways to benefit society with our knowledge.  What my students have accomplished this year really is beyond any expectations.   From a student developed online course in health concepts that has over 27,000 subscribers world-wide, to creating a challenge to improve the health of our community, students are innovating, creating, and asking questions that I cannot answer.  I love the daily challenge it has provided me.  Giving up control of the classroom allows voice and choice from everyone in the room. --Real projects with real outcomes--

Here is my presentation for mini-CAST on Design Thinking in the Science Classroom.

Flu Vaccine Project

With the flu plague going on right now in Texas, I felt like we should bump up our immunology unit a bit.  So many of my students have requested to learn about how their immune system works, why they should get a flu vaccine, and why its so much worse this year (is it?).  So here is the two part plan to teach immunology via the flu...

(1)  Visualizing the Flu 

• In groups, find a current news article discussing the flu.  Share out with the class your groups opinion of the article. Is there media bias?  Does it contain scientific facts to support claims?  Does it provide useful information?
• Find an article about the flu outside of the U.S.  (Google custom search by finding the internet country codes and using "site: Country Code, Flu Vaccine)  Share out with class - what is going on everywhere else?  How do we compare?  We hope to tie this in with our Skype in the Classroom Discussion.

• Develop a visual of how the flu enters the body and show the how the body fights and tries to protect you.  Show the difference between specific and non-specific body defenses and demonstrate how getting a flu vaccine changes things.  Students can use any digital media they choose to create their visual (Explain Everything, ThingLink, iMovie, etc).

• The best ones can be published in our iTunes U course to educate others on how vaccines work.

Here are a couple of examples of products using ThingLink:  

The Immune System and the Flu by Cole
The Flu by Kayleigh

(2) Design Lab: As a group, design a lab investigation that will help others make wiser decisions regarding their health.  Nutrient agar plates will be supplied.

• Team planning to figure out what kind of experiment they want to run.
• Group meetings with me so I can verify and approve their lab plan and review safety guidelines.  Students should explain what they want to do and how they plan to run their investigation.  The purpose of the meeting is for me to know what they are doing, approve it, and help them troubleshoot prior to setting up.
• They will be required to cite a recent scientific journal or article that supports their claim and/or laboratory results.

• Create a lab report in the form of a Public Service Announcement.  It should include all necessary components of a standard lab report - hypothesis, procedures, data, analysis [using the Claim-Evidence-Reasoning method], sources of error, and recommendations.  The lab should be audio, not text, using photographs and data using Explain Everything, VoiceThread, etc

• Here is the rubric we are working on--feel free to give us any suggestions :)
• Again, the best work can be published in our iTunes U course to teach others around the world. 

Here is one example of a final product that used Explain Everything and iMovie.

Students learned how their immune system works, the difference in specific and non-specific defenses, antibody-antigen interactions, the different types of vaccines, aseptic lab technique, and safety standards for microbiology experiments - all without direct teach.  We had several formative assessments along the way just to make sure they were getting the big concepts and understanding everything. 

Literature in Science

Literature in Science

As a high school Anatomy teacher, I don't typically take the time to do a book study or read novels in class.   I  think it might be fun to allow my students the option of a book study in place of a project we are doing this six weeks. 

Our really cool librarian Ms. Sullivan, created this complete list of resources found in our library that connects with my class.  She gave us this annotated bibliography that my students can read through to select a book that is interesting to them.

My idea is to allow the students to choose a book, read it, and develop a movie trailer to encourage others to read it as well.  As a part of the assignment, they would also need to create a character analysis and demonstrate to me the connection between the book content and our anatomy class.  The method by which they create and submit this will be entirely up to them.  

I am looking forward to seeing if any of my students accept this challenge and what products they might submit for their project.  I love giving options in my class and letting them decide what they want to learn more about.  Once complete, student creations will be published in our class portfolio.

HCC PBL

Welcome to the Healthy Cowboy Challenge for 2014!

In the spirit of letting my students design the class this year, I decided to let them also plan our 3rd annual health challenge at the high school.  In the past, we have adopted a volunteer teacher (or any school employee) and created a wellness plan for him or her. The students are the personal trainers, dietitians, and cheerleaders, helping their clients reach their goals.  Here is what this years students came up with to improve this project:

What's New This Year?

1.  Make it bigger -- invite people outside of our school, district, and community to join us.  If we are trying to improve the health of society, why limit ourselves within the walls of our high school?  Our central administration has a team this year and we are so excited to work with them!  We also have a teacher from a neighboring district participating via Skype!

2. Make it a competition.  Give points for healthy choices such as working out, trying a new healthy meal, replacing unhealthy drinks/snacks, visiting a farmers market, doing a fun run, etc. Whoever has the most points at the end of 12 weeks wins!

3. Use #chsAP to motivate, share pictures, and create a way to share successes.

4. Don't make all students participate.  Some students are unsure about this project, so we are going to give them the option of doing it.  If they want to help a teacher, they can, but if they don't...they have a different project to work on.  This ensures that all students involved truly want to make a difference and help their client achieve their goals.


What Clients Should Expect:   
   
(1)  Weekly check in each Friday so the students can record weight, blood pressure, and heart rate.

(2)  Students develop a weekly plan that could consist of healthy recipes, workout plans, general healthy habits tips, or scientific reasons you should be avoiding unhealthy foods.

(3)  Each week you accumulate points for making healthy choices.  It's a healthy competition!

(4)  Work with a team of motivated students who want to help you be successful and meet your goals.

Motivational video created by Jessie C. 

Heart Smart

Our third lesson is now posted in Health Without Borders!  Subscribe to our course in iTunes U on your iDevice and click HEART SMART to see what cool things my students created to teach about the heart and lungs.  Here is the overview:

Take a health challenge and have a healthier heart!  Have your class decide what they could do to improve heart health, complete the challenge, and then blog about it with us. We will respond to your posts.  Click here for a direct link to our class BLOG.

Learn from my students by using the iBooks and videos they created to learn about the heart and lungs.

Use the Explore section to find a fun lab from PBS kids on heart rate, determine lung volumes with a lab created by my students, or check out a few activities from the Texas Heart Institute.

Get your class moving with the Get up and Move Challenge. Log your miles with us! So far, we have miles logged from Texas, Tennessee, and Bejing!

You can check out the apps we found for you and then Skype with us and let us know what you think about the lesson.

All resources are found in the iTunes U course "Health Without Borders" under the post Heart Smart!

P.S...its all free :)

Take pictures and share them with us on Twitter using #chsAP or @jdeinhammer!

The iPad Classroom

There has seemed to be a lot of controversy lately regarding the distraction iPads cause in the classroom.  I have a lot of opinions on technology and have had a 1:1 classroom for 5 years now, so I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of what works and what doesn't.

"Do your kids play games in class?" Yes, they do...and some of those games really help them learn, some of them make their brains think logically or in a different way, while others seem to serve no purpose at all.   

What it comes down to, in my opinion, is lesson design.  If the educator has created a lesson that is interesting and engaging, the problem of gaming really doesn't exist. 

If I am running a lesson in my classroom and look out and see my kids disengaged and playing Madden, that forces me to re-evaluate MY lesson.  It makes me a better teacher to have that challenge facing me each day.  

I don't want a room full of disengaged game playing students.  I want them to be interested in what we are doing and learning how they can exist in the digital world.  I want them creating content to share and teach the world.  I want them to leave my room with a positive digital footprint.

When I first started teaching my course, over ten years ago,  it was an elective.  I had one section of the course and about 15 kids signed up.  I knew that if I didn't create engaging lessons that they liked, I wouldn't be teaching it again the following year.  This was prior to iPads, smartphones, and computers in my classroom.

It is not about the device, its truly about the design of the course.  There have always been distractions in the classroom, only the type of distraction has changed and will continue to change.   Make kids want to be in your class.  Teach the kid and not the stuff.  Find out what they are good at and find a way to incorporate their skills into your curriculum. Connect it to their lives.  It's the same philosophy most teachers have had for years.  

Book Creator

I think Book Creator is now one of my favorite creation apps!  Several of my Health Without Borders project groups are using Book Creator to develop their final product to teach elementary kids health concepts.  They were pretty excited to get to use the new drawing option now, as many found it difficult to find free for re-use images in Creative Commons or Wikimedia Commons  that were appropriate for their topic and target age group.  

They found the app very easy to work with and really had no questions for me at all.  They loved that they could AirDrop the book between group members so different people could contribute easily.  The voiceover option is also simple to use and works well with just the microphone on the iPad.  I was so impressed with their final product!   

A couple of example pages are shown below.  These books are based on the topic "You Are What You Eat" and focused on how food is digested in the body.  If you want to see the entire book, several books are published in their iTunes U course. 

This group drew their pictures by hand - scanned them in with Cam Scanner - imported into Comic Maker App to give distressed look to images and add text - imported into Book Creator as images - added voice over - exported as ePub file to be posted in Health Without Borders on iTunes U.

This group drew their pictures in the free version of SketchbookX - took a screenshot to camera roll - imported images into Book Creator - added voice over - exported as ePub file to be posted in Health Without Borders on iTunes U.  

Our Health Without Borders iTunes U course now has over 26,000 subscribers so my students are pretty motivated to be published.  They are competitive in trying to create a unique project that teaches the concept while engaging their audience.  Book Creator allows them to easily AppSmash to create something above and beyond my expectations!  I can't wait to see what they submit for the next sections of our course, Heart Smart, which should be published mid December.  

Image credits from book screenshots:  Clare M., Jinny R., Joyce C., 

Shannon D, Maddie T, and Jasmin H.

The WHY

This summer I was able to attend the BLC Conference in Boston.  While I was there, Alan November asked me (in front of a large crowd of people I might add) "Why do you publish all of that for free?", referring to my Anatomy and Physiology course in iTunes U.  I actually have no idea how I answered his question because I really hadn't thought much about it and I was very nervous talking in front of that giant room. :)

Since then, I have been thinking about it and I guess it is a pretty simple answer.  The content I am publishing is being used BECAUSE it is free.  I am not doing any additional work to post my lessons in iTunes U, none at all. It is just as simple as posting something on a Google site or Edmodo, only iTunes U has a huge worldwide audience.  Don't believe me?  Check out these emails...

Right now a teacher in Minnesota is using my course to teach her A&P class that she wasn't prepared for.  She was given a new course to teach two days before school started and had no time to prepare quality lessons for her kids in addition to her regular and pre-AP biology class she was teaching.  Now those 30 kids get a fun experience in a class, when they may have just ended up doing a bunch of worksheets and watching a lot of videos.

A school in South Africa is using my class to help their teachers learn how to teach in the digital age. Their school is considering iPads but had no training on how to incorporate technology.  Now one of their teachers has an example of a technology infused anatomy course she can use. 

A school in Venezuela is using my class as a prerequisite to their nursing program.  Talk about thinking twice before you publish something...this has made me a better teacher knowing my work is being used in these ways.

I have so many examples like this.  I love all the emails I get from all over the world, many of which I have to translate.  

So that is the why.  I publish because #1 its easy....#2 its fun to share....#3 it connects my classroom to the entire world.  My students are given opportunities to publish into the A&P course to a real audience of over 100,000 subscribers.  They have the ability to Skype with schools in different countries.  They get to learn about a creating a positive digital presence for themselves.   

More than anything, the iPad gives them the ability to create cool things that are being published and used, not just a device to use for Googling answers to worksheets. 

Want to create your own course in iTunes U?  Start by logging in at  Course Manager. 

In iTunes U, search "creating iTunes U courses" and find multiple resources 

for how to set up your class!  Or tweet or message me if you have questions!

Lets All Move to New Zealand?

This morning I was woken up at 6:30am to my 6 year old in my face..."MOMMY, I need you to teach me how to rainbow loom!" While I was trying to process what he was even asking, he grabbed the iPad and said "Nevermind, I'll ask YouTube." 

My favorite thing about the iPad Summit was that it was NOT about the iPad. It was about transforming education to meet the needs of today's society. We don't need to teach them "stuff". They can find out whatever it is they need to know, as my six year so nicely put it, by asking YouTube.  The iPad is just the driving force of change. 

Are educators still standing in the front of the room playing PowerPoint Karoke to unengaged kids who could easily Google or YouTube the majority of the state standards for their course?  Can educators be empowered to force their kids to ASK questions of the unknown?  Leverage student interest and develop experiences around them while naturally incorporating digital citizenship.  School could be SO much more fun and purposeful.

My favorite moments from the Summit:

Dr. Ruben Puentedura - The SAMR model is not a ladder you climb, but it is instead a web that you use to develop more enriching, authentic experiences for kids.

Patrick Larkin - For change to occur with educators, schools need leadership that can have hard conversations when necessary.  Empower your educators with visible, encouraging, supportive leaders.

Reshan Richards - Quite possibly my favorite comment of the conference - You don't learn about curriculum, you learn through curriculum.  (A close second would be "Oh crap I almost just fell off the stage...don't tweet that.")  :)

Richard Wells - Schools in New Zealand are completely allowed to design their own curriculum to meet the needs of their culture. There is NO content in any of their curriculum, only processes and thinking skills.

For example: Why do American schools force students to learn specific content that possibly will never benefit them in their future? An objective from the TEKS (Texas): "compare the structures of viruses to cells, describe viral reproduction, and describe the role of viruses in causing diseases such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and influenza." An objective in New Zealand "Analyze a New Zealand health issue".   Why are we so focused on facts?  Our kids are missing out on the connections and big picture because they are too busy memorizing the 5 steps of lysogenic viral replication.

Anyone that ever has an opportunity should attend the EdTech Teacher Workshops.  It is inspiring to be with so many other teachers and administrators that have the same desire to make a difference in education. 

iPad Summit Presentation

Here is my presentation for the iPad Summit in Boston on Global Connections using iTunes U.  So fortunate to be here and to have such great students who come up with amazing ideas and challenge me each day.  It really isn't about the iPad transforming education, it is about a design shift to encourage our students to be creative innovators instead of regurgitators of facts, from consumers to creators.

Get Up and Move!

Our second unit is almost ready in Health Without Borders!  All content should be added midweek before I fly off to present this project and iTunes U at the awesome EdTech Teacher iPad Summit in Boston!


If you teach elementary school and want to join us, its pretty easy...just subscribe to our free class in iTunes U on your iDevice! Here is how it works...

Choose from these available activities -- or do them all!

(1)  Encourage your class to take a health challenge. This challenge asks students to find a way to improve bone health.  Once the challenge is complete, have your kids blog with us - or blog as a class and let us know what you did.

(2) Learn from our class.  My students created some pretty amazing iBooks using the Book Creator App to teach basic concepts over bones and muscles.  Look for material to be added by the end of the week!

(3) Do a lab or two. See how your diet alters the strength and appearance of bones or see how your flexibility is changed when you warm up before exercising. 

(4) Design a better prosthetic with some very cool PBS Kids online lessons.

(5) Help us log miles by moving your bones and muscles.  Submit your miles to our spreadsheet and lets see how far we can walk.     Get Up and Move Challenge

SKYPE:  Want to talk to us?

We would love your feedback on the lesson.  What did you learn?  What questions do you still have? We would also love to discuss how your society is different than ours in Texas!!

Take pictures and share them with us on Twitter using #chsAP or @jdeinhammer! Here is our photostream so far!  Thanks to those that shared pictures.

Thanks to everyone that participated in the first lesson...from Coppell, Texas to Venezuela, Bejing, and the Ukraine...it has been amazing hearing from everyone!  :)

Zaption

Zaption is actually REALLY cool.  I was looking for a better way to organize blended learning days for Anatomy and this might be the solution.  Being able to pause video and insert text slides, add questions, or provide key terms all will help the student learn how to work through material on their own.  Starting with guided activities will help teach them how to be independent learners.  I like that you can export their answers to see how they did, and I just found a feature that allowed them to check their own answers.  There are so many possibilities with this!  

This is the first one I created:    The Muscular System

This is a video from Crash Course Science with added questions and text. 

Health Without Borders

So my class is creating a MOOC for elementary school kids...We want to teach you about being healthy!  Join us in Texas as we partner with schools in New Zealand, Brazil, Chicago, Nashville, and others to try to change the health habits of our society.

If you teach elementary school and want to join us, its pretty easy...just subscribe to our free class in iTunes U on your iDevice! Here is how it works...


Choose from these available activities -- or do them all!

(1)  Encourage your class to take a health challenge. This first challenge asks them to find a way to eat healthier for a couple of days.  Once the challenge is complete, have your kids blog with us - or blog as a class and let us know what you did.  We will respond to each post.

(2)  Read a couple of iBooks that my class created on the topic.  This first unit is on digestion so learn about why you should eat healthy food.

(3)  Watch a couple of short videos my class created.  Again, the first unit is on digestion so you would learn about your stomach, intestines, and how food is absorbed.  See some experiments we ran to test how unhealthy food damages your organs.

(4) Challenge your class to do something to improve health where you live!  You can share the products you create with us if you want.  Suggestions are provided in the course.

(5)  Check out some fun apps we found that you might like.

(6)  Skype with us and let us know what you thought about the lesson.  You can also take pictures and share them with us on Twitter using #chsAP or @jdeinhammer!

Join the first lesson, You Are What You Eat, in Health Without Borders!  Other chapters will be added over the course of the school year.

Student Designed Learning

After hearing an amazing presentation from NoTosh at BLC this summer, I decided to let my students design our curriculum this year.  Kind of scary? Yes. Worth it?  Totally. They seriously amazed me with their thoughts and ideas.  They want to learn WAY cooler things than the state of Texas recommends for them. 

So here is how I set it up….On the first day of school they had to submit an idea or question of what they really wanted to learn in anatomy class this year to a google moderator group chat.  On the second day, we took those questions and sorted by topic and then removed the ones that were really just questions they could Google easily.  Some of the Googleable questions were reworked by different groups until they came up with a lot of pretty amazing ideas.  

Here are a few examples of questions my students developed :

How does the brain differentiate between dreams and reality?

Can a serial killers brain be reprogrammed?

Can we create a better system of distributing vaccinations 

in an efficient and accessible manner?

How can we encourage unhealthy people to make better dietary 

choices to improve their overall health?

How can medication be developed to decrease the chance of side 

effects while still helping the patient?

Can we create an alternative to radiation treatment?

No offense to the state of Texas, but these questions are way better than anything a committee of grown-ups could develop.  And they created these in less than 52 minutes...with minimal effort...while they were tweeting...and texting their friends...and playing Candy Crush.  They are capable of so much more than we expect from them.  

I have the questions sorted now into 6 major themes and one category of ‘other’.  The first days of each six weeks will be devoted to taking one of the themes and looking at their questions for that topic and developing our six weeks plan around what they actually want to learn. They take the topics and discover a way to connect to society or a current health and wellness issue. 

Sounds way more exciting than “summarize the human growth and development cycle” or “evaluate models according to their limitations in representing biological objects”.  

We did this in an old fashion kind of way - (especially considering that all 150 of my students are carrying around a brand new school issued iPad) But we were kind of just making it up as we went along so post it notes was the way to go!

So far, we have developed a MOOC in iTunes U [Health Without Borders] with over 27,000 subscribers learning from my class and their creations.   Students have the ability to choose what they teach, how they teach it, and the products have been outstanding so far.