Lightning In A Bottle

I recently had such a great day being a teacher that I thought I should blog about it. Let me explain.

In my World History class, we are currently working on infographics covering ancient Athens and Sparta. I split the class up into 5 teams of 4 to do the project. This was all done randomly by drawing names out of my Atlanta Braves batting helmet. Based on the students in the class, I wasn't concerned about any combination of kids working together. This is a very hard working and high achieving class as a whole. I decided the students would work together using Google docs to do the infographics. I taped an example to the cabinet from a McDonald's/Starbucks infographic I had found and told them to consult it for questions on what one should look like. Each team had a captain that made the doc and invited their teammates to join them in creating it and then explained the instructions to their group.

Any of you that have used Google docs have experienced the frustration with it. It doesn't always put things where you want them to, it doesn't always format things the way you think it should, etc. My students grew frustrated at work that would be completed and then lost due to a Google error. (This happened over the course of a few days)  I kept encouraging them to try again. When one of them would complain to me about it, my response was, "What should we do about it?" Which led to their answer, "I guess do it again." And my reply was, "Good answer." 

Some of the students didn't have a lot of experience with Google docs and were trying to learn it. I encouraged the whole class that we were using this experience to learn about ancient Greece and also to build our technology skills. That is some backstory of our project. 

So Thursday rolls around and the kids aren't as far along as I, or they, would have hoped due to technology issues with the site. I started class by saying, "Clearly we are having some technology problems that are keeping us from accomplishing our goal. What should we do about it?" One girl, who probably had the most work lost due to errors, and was well versed in my suggestions, answered aloud, "Push through it!" I laughed and said, "Great answer! But what else can we do? Let's talk about it." 

Another student spoke up and said, "What if we created our graphics and stuff in another application and then took screen shots and dropped them into the doc?" I told them I thought that sounded like a great idea. With that student's suggestion, the class was reinvigorated with hope of getting this assignment done. The kids then worked harder than I've ever seen them work. It was awesome.

One girl sitting on the floor with her group, looked away from her project long enough to say to me, "How about some working music Mr. B?" I plugged my iPhone into the speakers and turned on my classroom mix of music and we kept working along. And I do mean WE. I had my laptop with me and would go to whichever group wanted some help. Since they've shared their docs with me I would pull it up and basically join their group as I did some editing, researching, and troubleshooting. When we all got over the hump of whatever problem we were working on, I'd exit the doc and wait for another group that needed me. 

I saw kids helping kids and teaching each other. That was my favorite part. At one point, I heard a student call out to her teammate from across the room, "Can you get a map of Sparta in here?" The other girl replied, "I'm on it!" And then buried her nose in her work to get it done.

As I'm floating around the room, I just stopped and looked around. None of the students even noticed I was in the room for a while. They were just problem solving, teaching each other, and having a good time while they worked. Every one of them was focused on the mission. Textbooks were cracked wide open and screens were lit up as facts were checked, websites were being consulted for images, and kids were creating graphics to go into their project. I could have left the room and nothing would have changed. I knew then that I had to find a way to create more days like this in my classroom. 

Towards the end of the period, a student approached me and said, "Hey Mr. B, ours is bigger than we thought, we're thinking of doing two infographics together. Is that okay?" My response was, "I'm going to leave that decision up to you. Whatever you and your group think is best." You could tell he appreciated the freedom to dictate the course of his own project and I like not having to think for all the kids in the room. 

I also saw one of my more disengaged students get totally into this project. His teammates gave him a specific aspect to work on and he took ownership of it. He asked for feedback from me on his image selection and got some advice on how to insert text boxes, and even was proactive about calling a teammate over for help. 

That was Thursday. Friday was the final day of the project since I extended the deadline due to our tech issues and the fact that the kids just weren't done creating yet. Friday was full of more troubleshooting and teamwork. I'm excited to see the final project. I will hang them in my room with pride and those kids will remember how hard it was to create those stinking infographics on Athens and Sparta! 

I am not a perfect teacher by any stretch of the imagination. These kinds of days don't happen all the time. I'm still trying to figure out this teaching thing. But these last couple days with my world history kids have left me going home feeling on top of the world. They've been knee deep in ancient Greece and technology for the last week and I know they've learned a lot and I can't wait to give them an assessment to prove it.  I couldn't have a classroom like this without the freedom from my school to use technology, play music, let kids sit on the floor, and basically create the environment I want to.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go try to figure out how to catch lightning in a bottle.