My students are finally taking ownership of their learning!  They understand that we are all teachers and we are all learners.  Some children are still coming to me for information and skills instruction, but many realize that they can learn from each other just as well, if not better!

Give your students the power to "disrupt" class and you will be pleasantly surprised!  Although I occasionally have to teach them appropriate use of this power, very few students abuse it purposely!!!

We recently posted our first set of Passion Projects.  Thanks to some amazing friends on Twitter, my students came to school the next Monday and found that they had quite a few comments on each of their Passion Projects!

I told all of my students that they needed to reply to each comment respectfully, even if they disagreed and I discovered some wonderful quotes!  On the image above, Sadie replied to a compliment and a question with a strong reflective statement!  She even complimented the commenter sincerely for his criticism!  This would never have happened in my classroom, because I don't allow students to give unsolicited criticism!

As I continued reading Sadie's blog comments, I noticed this one.  Here she is trying to explain that school is fun for her and that even though Passion Projects are not graded, she wants to continue to improve her work because she is not yet happy with it!  That makes me happy!!!

I love how Passion Time is such an excellent opportunity for me to see my students developing their 21st Century Skills and watch them develop a strong love of learning.  Considering the small amount of time devoted to this, it is reaping huge benefits!  I hope you are trying a version of Passion Time in your classroom!!!  Here are the steps we use.

I started the lesson by showing my students how to log-in and begin creating shapes.  Shapes are easy to create because Creately uses a drag-and-drop interface which can be sized and moved around the workspace.  Then, I showed my students how to change the color, fill, and border around it.  Next, I taught my students how to bring in a text box (and how to change the size of the text).

At this point, I assigned each students two shapes randomly (but I could have differentiated instruction here by giving some of the easier shapes to my struggling students, etc.).  They would need to compare and contrast each shape based on their properties and put them in the correct places on the Venn Diagram.  I explained to my students that it would be up to them to find all the properties of their shapes using any resources in the room or online.  Many students used this time to learn more about their shapes - the semi-authentic purpose motivated most students to become researchers on the topic!

Finally, I gave my students time to work, but circulated around to assist and fix mistakes.  My students know that when they have questions, they need to ask each other first, so collaboration was happening quite a bit despite each student having their own specific task!  One of the great things about Creately is that students can be working collaboratively inside a shared document - just like a Google Doc!  This may come in handy as a few of my kids are finishing these up this evening from home!  I can see it now, a phone call to a friend, "Can you help me fix my trapezoid?  The file name is..."  What a great world we live in!!!  :)

Evaluation is a skill that sometimes gets neglected in the intermediate grades, but I feel is extremely important in order for students to become thinkers, rather than just doers.  According to Bloom's Taxonomy, Evaluation is a skill at or near the top of the pyramid.  This higher-order thinking skill is complex and requires an understanding of each part in order to make judgments about each.  If students are putting things in some sort of order, there is a constant comparing & contrasting that is happening in order to move one ahead or move one back.  What makes one component a better alternative to another?  Students have to decide!

In a recent science lab, I taught my students what conductors and insulators are.  We learned that conductors transfer heat and insulators prevent heat from transferring.  In order to find out which materials made good conductors (and therefore poor insulators) we put five rods made of different materials into a glass of increasingly warming water and stuck frozen butter pats to the ends.  The butter that slid early, we learned, must have been on rods made of materials that conducted heat well.  The butter that stayed on the longest, therefore, must have been on materials that were poor conductors of heat.

The next day, we began focusing on insulators.  We wrapped a plastic bottle with various materials, filled it with hot water, and submerged it in an ice bath for 15 minutes.  Based on the temperatures at the end of the experiment, we learned that some materials kept the heat in better than others.  These materials were considered good insulators, while the bottles that lost a lot of heat were considered poor insulators.