Back from a short break

So, I am back. I went to Space Camp in Huntsville, AL in March. Very cool. I remember that movie from the 80s where Kelly Preston and Joaquin Phoenix launched the space shuttle by accident. That's not exactly how it was, but we did complete a "shuttle mission" (with me in Mission Control). Came home with the payload doors open and all the shuttle crew were sucked out, but, an otherwise successful mission. Oops. I also spent some time in NYC with my fine arts department. I never knew precipitation could be so brutal. A meterological dermabrasion is what it was. Brrr..... I got to see Mary Poppins. She and her spoonful of sugar made the trip worthwhile.

Back on the homefront there's LOTS of stress. Papers are in their second drafts. Products are due in a few weeks, and kids are freaking out. Pink slips are flying around. My favorite explanation on the pink slip (a form we use to let kids know that we know they are not turning in work/meeting deadlines) is the "I forgot" excuse. Have we not been working on this thing every week since January? You forgot? Oh, okay.

I am a little worried about my senior teachers. They are looking really tired and stressed. I, myself, made a career move partly because of Senior Project, so I know where they are coming from. How can we make Senior Project less of a burden for senior teachers? I have an awesome team of teachers, but I fear I will lose them to another curriculum or another career if I can't figure out some way to ease their Senior Project burdens. This is the cardio part of the Senior Project yoga practice (reference to my first entry). I need to come in and say those empowering yogic words of wisdom which will inspire them to continue their practice. They'll probably scoff at "be in the moment" right now.

I am scheduling lots of individual conferences with kids to solve organizational problems with the papers, but what do you do about the apathetic crowd who has nothing to work with? Do I just sit back and let them face the consequences? Graduation is looming. Family members are making arrangements. For some reason, this pressure is not enough to get them motivated. Or, are they so behind that beginning anything is too overwhelming?

Met with the curriculum coordinators from the county office this morning. SP Coordinators from all the high schools in the county are finally going to start meeting to share ideas and establish some expectations. I think this will be a good opportunity to share and steal ideas. Our county is pretty competitive, so we need to really focus on collaboration instead of competition. Should be interesting.

Off to another student conference . . .

Early Warning System

So, I'm back. Holidays are hectic, huh? Takes a while to recover. Seems like my life centers around laundry. How many clothes can one small family wear? I have talked to my husband and children about the possibility of nudity as a lifestyle choice, but given our level of fitness and the current temperatures in Asheville, NC, we all decided that wouldn't be pretty. So, off to wash I go. . .wash, dry, fold, put away . . .wash, dry, fold, put away, argue with five year old daughter about the appropriate length of a shirt (thanks Bratz commercials!), wash . . .you get the point.

On the Senior Project homefront we are still fighting the battle of apathy. Last semester was a real eye opener for us in that we finally realized that our students need more than the threat of a zero to motivate them to meet deadlines. A family consumer science (read: home ec.) teacher gave us the idea of actually citing the kids for their missed deadlines. She showed us a pink slip that she used at her previous school to notify parents and administrators of a failure to turn in a major assignment. In our "post mortem" meeting after Board Night the administrator on our advisory committee mentioned that she would like to be involved with any of the kids who continued to turn components in late or not at all. We decided to mush (say: moosh) these two ideas together and make our own pink slip.

Our graphics department designed and printed up "Pink Slips" to hand to the kids after any missed deadline. For now, we decided to go with the major deadlines, not the forms deadlines. The slips are printed on quadruplicate (is that a word?) paper with a copy going to the teacher for reference, the student, an administrator, and one to me for filing and parental contacts. Our proposal letters are due Feb. 6, so I am interested to see how this new little "incentive" works out.

hth

Okay, so, what if for Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa you could have a miraculous tool that would help you manage the nitty gritty, annoying, overwhelming parts of the Senior Project at a glance. Well, guess what? Fish is your wish. I’m sitting in the beautiful, albeit empty, Wilmington International Airport. I have just attended a training session for the new Senior Project Tracker. This Web-based program will, believe it or not, allow us to see at a glance who has and has not turned in assignments. It forces the kids to plan before beginning all of the major components. It allows us to evaluate materials without ever leaving the comfort of our computer chairs (or recliners). It also allows parents, mentors, advisors, guidance counselors, all authorized interested parties to track a particular student’s (or students’) progress at any time of day or night. It's like a little holiday miracle, isn't it?

Gone are the days of the humongous, backbreaking book bag. Welcome to the electronic age, folks. Glad you're here.

The Tracker was developed by a group of guys in Milwaukee (they called themselves “Homeboyz Interactive”) in conjunction with a program to employ violent juvenile offenders in a more productive capacity. The program they developed called Project Foundry is used by over thirty schools in ten states to help support their project based learning activities. Their participants are consistently labeled "best" and "coolest" by none other than the US Department of Education and the Gates Foundation. Nifty, huh?

What is this thing we call "project-based learning?" Here’s a quote from their website:

“Project-based learning is an instructional method centered on the learner. Instead of using a rigid lesson plan that directs a learner down a specific path of learning outcomes or objectives, project-based learning allows in-depth investigation of a topic worth learning more about. Learners represent what they've learned from the construction of a personally meaningful subject or object through a medium such as a research paper, community project, business proposal, play or poem. In addition learners have more autonomy over what they learn, maintaining interest and motivating them to take more responsibility for their learning." (http://www.projectfoundry.org/innovate.html)

The folks from Partnership 4 Dynamic Learning (P4DL) and the Senior Project Center (SPC) ran into the folks from Project-Based Learning Systems (PBLS) and a match was made. After all, what is Senior Project other than PROJECT-based learning.

Project Foundry is currently being tailored to meet the needs of Senior Project stakeholders as an awesome tool to finally bring some sense to the mountain of paperwork we all dread. Yahoo!

Never fear. The SPC at P4DL is bringing PBLS on board PDQ 4u to help with the SP a3. hth. Keep it on the DL. lol.

s ig2r. sbtsbc . . .ack, I can’t stop . . .mtfbwu

Peace out. (Am I too geeky for a signoff?—Suggestions welcome.)

Project Foundry

Senior Project Tracker information

Tracker video (a short video that will be updated soon)

SMS abbreviations

I'm No Wendy

Just a little reminder about using what you’ve got: don’t forget to use the Web to reach your community. I don’t know about your Web setup, but our school site was VERY complicated. You actually had to be familiar with html in order to update or post anything. Now, we have a new program and posting information is as easy as attaching a form to an email. Thank goodness for progress.

Inspired by the SitePal (Wendy!) on the SPN, I decided to create a virtual training session for my evaluators. We hold Board Night on a Wednesday from 5:00pm to 9:00 pm. Some of my evaluators are not able to make it to the training which I hold before and during dinner from 5:30-6:00, so many of them went untrained—bad idea. Instead of training them during the portfolio evaluation time, which they love, I decided to bring the training to them at their convenience. I created a PowerPoint with and without narration and posted it on our school site.

The PowerPoint still has some timing glitches and I can’t stand the sound of my voice, but the feedback has been great. I think people, especially new evaluators, really like to have an idea about what Senior Project is all about before they arrive on campus. Parents have even viewed it so they would know what to expect for their kids on Board Night.

In addition, we use the Web for our invitation process. It saves time, postage, and paper. I really like having an electronic archive of correspondence, and the evaluators have responded positively to electronic communication. I think we are all tired of shuffling (and losing) papers.

I am working on a virtual session for Mentors, Experts (our Project/Practical Experience supervisor), and parents for next semester. I think having the ability to “converse” with the additional stakeholders will really bring life to our project. It’s all about communication, right?

Check out my stuff at http://www.buncombe.k12.nc.us/acrhs/site/default.asp. I’m no Wendy, but I think I’ll suffice.


***REMEMBER THAT POSTING YOUR STUDENT MANUAL ON THE “UNPROTECTED” WEB IS A NO-NO. INFORMATION CONTAINED IN YOUR MANUAL IS MOST LIKELY THE RESULT OF TRAINING YOU RECEIVED FROM CARLEEN OSHER, DIRECTOR, OR ANOTHER SENIOR PROJECT CENTER CONSULTANT. THAT MAKES THE INFORMATION INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF P4DL. IN ADDITION, SCHOOLS THAT HAVE NOT ATTENDED TRAINING SHOULD NOT HAVE ACCESS TO SENIOR PROJECT MATERIALS. IF YOU NEED TO MAKE IT AVAILABLE, PROTECT IT WITH A PASSWORD.***

A Virtual Possibility

Are you familiar with Moodle or Blackboard? Well, in our school district we are in the process of implementing Moodle, but upgrades are on the way and the going is slow. Moodle is essentially a virtual learning community in which students can have discussions (really like chats), post assignments, receive peer feedback, and take quizzes and tests. Its possibilities in every classroom, not just the Senior Project classroom, are endless.

I used Moodle in my freshman and senior classes for quiz purposes, but I used it mainly as a forum. We all know that there are students in class who are reluctant to contribute. This “virtual community” created by programs such as Moodle really eliminated that fear and anxiety. I was able to post a discussion question about a novel and have TWO HUNDRED comments or replies in one class period. Here’s the secret. . . allow the kids to adopt an alias. You are still in control because you know the alias, but the kids have virtual anonymity. It is amazing how in-depth the discussion can get.

With Moodle down for the count, I had to search the Web for a replacement and found Nicenet (www.nicenet.org). It is easier to register for and, because it is Web-based, it requires no host (which is a requirement for Moodle, even though it is a free program). Nicenet offers many of the same virtual services, at no cost to the users. I have emailed the creators of Nicenet asking about upgrades, and they assure me that upgrades are on the way. They use volunteer programmers in order to keep the program at no cost, so the programming gets done when there is free time. Is there ever free time in the programming/networking world?

Applications in the Senior Project classroom could include discussions about topic selection, ethics, drafting, fears about giving presentations. . .the list goes on and on. Try it. You’ll like it. I'll post a transcript of a recent chat in an English classroom. One class period's responses are thirty-seven pages long in Word. You'd never get that with a verbal discussion. SPN members can access this transcript by going to the Resources page and scrolling down to Kelli's Downloads.

The Sniff Test

So it’s plagiarism prevention time again. Seems like just yesterday when I wrote the entry about ethics and the students’ responsibility to cite borrowed information. This is obviously a constant struggle.

This time, the lesson comes not from a Senior Project class, but from a Sports Marketing class in which the teacher had assigned a short (2-3 page) research paper on an athlete or sports agent. Through the faculty grapevine, I have become known as the “Plagiarism Buster” because I am the facilitator of our Turnitin.com account and I am really good at Google searches for plagiarized information. Anyhoo, Ms. G brought me several papers that, in her words were, “Too good to be true.” (That’s a pretty good indicator, huh? When struggling writers become brilliant writers overnight . . .) One of the papers she brought me was printed in color and still had the hotlinks in blue. What a hoot! It took me about five minutes to find their sources, print them out, and return them to Ms. G. Didn’t even have to bother with Turnitin; all I had to do was pick out a particularly sophisticated phrase and put the whole thing in the Google search bar with quotes at the beginning and end. Immediate results. Ms. G was amazed at how easy it was to bust them. I taught her my very intricate (ha ha) technique and she was off and running. She took her set of papers back to class, laid them all out on the table, and gave her kids the opportunity to pick them up and try again with no penalty, as long as they did their own work. About HALF the class picked up their papers to try again. She put the remainder of the papers through the “sniff test” and still found about twelve instances of pure cut and paste. After awarding the thieves with a zero and assigning an additional paper on ethics and plagiarism, I think her kids are finally getting the point. And here’s the point. . . we are not stupid.

I don’t know if busy schedules and lack of time to investigate has led to students being able to get away with plagiarism, or if it is just that teachers don’t know how easy it is to find the sources. Some people say that the Internet has corrupted our kids, making it easy for them to cheat. I think it’s our fault. We have not taught them how to integrate information and have not held the line enough to make the consequences for plagiarism meaningful.

My school is on the road to changing that mindset. We are serious about teaching our kids that plagiarism is stealing, just as if you put a CD in your pocket. Stealing is stealing. No question. Information literacy and writing instruction will go a long way toward plagiarism prevention, but, let’s face it, it all comes down to the grade. If we all stick together and take the time to perform the “sniff test,” the word will get around and the ever-so-easy right click won’t be worth it anymore.

Here are some great resources. I have written for permission to use them. One is a great interactive tutorial about citing information and one is a well-formatted brochure you could hand out to your kids about plagiarism prevention.

http://library.acadiau.ca/tutorials/plagiarism/

http://alameda.peralta.edu/projects/20013/plagiarismbrochure12pt.pdf#search=%22%22plagiarism%20handout%22%22

Stragglers

Arghh. The approval process continues. At our school, we have decided that the approval process is the key to success in the Senior Project. It’s where the great topics are celebrated and the “not so great” (you know what I mean) topics are refined. We are now six weeks into the process and still have kids who have not yet been approved. Every year, we tweak the approval checklist to add depth and rigor. What that means is that every year the process gets longer and longer. The first draft of the research paper was due this week and we still have those few poor little stragglers who either can’t seem to get it together or can’t decide what they want to do.

Senior Project on a block schedule is a bear. Eighteen weeks to begin thinking about a topic, think some more about a topic, continue to mull about the topic, finally decide about the topic, propose the topic, change your mind about the topic, and think about the topic some more. Then, to catch up with your class, try to make up the zeroes you have missed, and turn in something deep and meaningful?

We do have benchmarks in place throughout the curriculum (mostly in English classes), and we have been requiring Senior Project since 1998, so I can’t see where this project should be a surprise for most folks. Admittedly, many students who have to resubmit just didn’t give enough detail or didn’t attach the appropriate forms. Small potatoes. Those are easy to fix. What worries me is the kids who just have no idea and can’t seem to get going. They are the kids who will just chuck it and go to summer school (missing their graduation). Not good.
I’m looking for any good suggestions to help our approval process move along a little more smoothly in a block semester. Let me know what you do that works. I’m sure there is an obvious solution that I am just missing in my sleep-deprived stupor