We Are All Super Stars!!

So, I'm a little delayed in posting this. December was a whirlwind of activity, and although I had great intentions of filling my break with blog posts and planning, instead I chose to spend my days with warm cups of coffee and snuggles.

With that said, Angela and I are excited to announce that just before the winter break our students finished their first collaborative STEM project using Defined STEM. I introduced this project in a previous blog post, and wanted to share an update! Our students worked so hard over the last 2 weeks! All of the groups WOWED us with their creativity, collaboration, and ability to come to consensus.

After our students planned their conceptual models and built the physical models of each instrument, they were ready to advertise for the concert AND perform! They worked together to create a billboard and a performance, that they then recorded and edited. Once all recordings were finished, we uploaded the videos to iMovie and the groups edited their movies and finalized them for our class playlist. All members of the group had to play an active role in the video- they could sing, play an instrument, record, and/or edit the movie. Watching the smiles on their faces during their final performances was the best part of the entire project. It made up for duct tape stuck to the couches, cardboard scraps found in EVERY nook and cranny of the room, and junk, I mean supplies, strewn from one end of our space to another...we are still finding rubber bands and string :)

Our classroom was filled with enthusiasm and excitement (and a whole lot of tape!) whenever they looked at the journey and realized it was science time! With our collaboration day with Michael Mohammad looming, we were cutting it close, but all of the groups stuck to the timeline and finished on time. The students of TEAM Togetherness were thrilled to share their instruments AND their finished videos with their high school mentors. It pays to have a real audience!

We are SO proud of these kids and are already knee deep in the planning of our next STEM project! Hopefully it won't take me so long to post :)

SOUND PERFORMANCES PLAYLIST

~ Kate

Adding Inquiry using Defined STEM!

Adding inquiry and STEM activities into the content areas has been a priority for Angela and I since the beginning of our journey together. Some of the most memorable moments with our students involve inquiry and their voice and choice.

This year, our school was fortunate enough to subscribe to Defined STEM. Defined STEM offers a variety of resources, across all standards and subjects, with their subscription. These performance tasks present students with real-world problem solving around a specific career or industry. The performance tasks are inquiry based, and typically tackled in a small group. Defined STEM uses the G.R.A.S.P. Model to introduce their performance tasks.

Every aspect of the project/performance task is completely customizable. The subscription allows you to edit tasks, products, upload additional docs, videos, and/or links. Rubrics are included for each task, and those are also editable. You can even upload your own rubric. Once changes have been made to a performance task, you can share it with a colleague and your students. When given a link, they can easily access the student version!

Many of the classrooms at our school are implementing these performance tasks across subject areas. A STEM committee met last summer to look at ways we could embed this amazing resource into our already existing science units. The cross grade level conversations were empowering, and helped many of us get a better grasp on the website and all it has to offer.

After customizing the performance task and rubrics to best meet the needs of our students, I created additional materials that would support them during their product creation. I could easily link these docs directly to the online performance task so that ALL necessary materials are embedded right in the website link sent to students! I also created a PACING GUIDE to help us, as teachers, plan the inquiry project, AND to help our students use their class time wisely. Although many of our students are working on Genius Hour projects right now, this is our first inquiry group project. Angela and I felt the pacing guide would help keep them on track, and divvy up the product tasks.

For our first performance task, our students will be creating a SUPERSTAR MUSICAL GROUP! They will be working in their inquiry groups to problem solve and apply the knowledge they learned during their Physics of Sound unit. We introduced the performance task to the students today and they will be meeting with their inquiry group next week. We promise to post pictures of their progress over the next few weeks! 

~ Kate