Kristine Harootunian

Collaborate with teachers and model the effective use of technology tools and resources to continuously assess student learning and student ability to choose and use appropriate technology

This has been one of my favorite projects, I think students would agree. Student in my Math 3 class were learning about the various mathematical functions and how to transform them algebraically. For their culminating activity in this unit, students were given eight weeks to create some form of Desmos art by using the various functions and transformations to create their images.

I collaborated with the other Math 3 teacher to decide how we were going to give feedback to students along the way, assess the students on their work, and share and celebrate their creations across the three sections of the class.

One way that this project effectively used technology was that students were able to see what their peers were doing. I made a Google sheet and asked students to post a link to their works in progress. Many students were inspired by what they saw in their classmate's work and were intrigued enough to want to collaborate with and learn from them, instead of relying on me as the expert. I was asked what I might do differently in the future, my answer was an honest, nothing.

In the SAMR model, this task was a Redefinition. Could you imagine doing this by hand? Some of the images are made up of 545 different equations!

Desmos Art!

Evidence: PLP Rollout Process

Our school has been in the midst of transforming our advisory system from a 9th 10th grade model to a full school model, in part to meet the requirements of Act 77, and mostly because we think it's the right thing to do.

I am one of the leaders for our school’s advisory team. It is made up of guidance counselors, grade level lead advisors, and a tech integrationist – eight of us in all. Over the past year or so we have been trying shape what students’ PLPs are going to look like. One of the changes we have asked advisors to make is to do a mid year check in with their students and have students reflect on their year as part of their PLP. We asked advisors to have individual meetings with each of their advisees about the school year thus far: maybe discuss grades, talk about new directions for second semester, highlights/lowlights, etc.

We wanted this to go well for all, so we modeled how a check in could go in a professional development meeting with advisors. Teachers thought that these authentic check ins made sense and made teachers feel like they could have genuine relationships with their students and help guide them. However, knowing the demands of being an advisor, I was skeptical that everyone would follow through in making this change.

After the request was made to the advisors, and because I love data, I checked in with advisors about how this process went. Two of the fifteen were able to make this change in advisory. For the thirteen that were not, I wanted to know why. I heard things like.

I have no time. (During this same time period all students are allowed to check in with their teachers for class related things Monday-Wednesday. Thursday and Friday are supposed to be designated advisory times…where there are additional activities planned.)
There’s a privacy concern talking about grades of students in a non-confidential environment.
It feels weird to have this conversation.

Using the strategies outlined in the book Switch, by Dan and Chip Heath here’s how I think we could approach things differently:

Shape the Path – have teachers set a specific schedule for which students they were going to meet with that day (like setting out the gym clothes).
Tweak the Environment – make a school wide announcement that on advisory days students had to remain in advisory
Build Habits – Why should this be a once a year check in? Why not allocate advisory time to five individual students each week? That way you are constantly checking in with all of your students every 2-3 weeks or so and it would be less awkward.
Rally the Herd – We have professional development times for advisors every few weeks – we could share the bright spots with each other and develop strategies for those who feel they are less successful.

You may be asking yourself, “Where’s the technology piece in all of this?” Well, one result of these meetings is to document their goals, reflections on a variety of topics, and evidence of their achievements in Google Sites (kind of like the one I am making now). These sites serve as the basis for our PLP conferences that we hold with all students and their parents/guardians in the spring. These portfolios serve as a macro level progress report for the advisor, parents, and the student. For some students, populating this site is a piece of cake, unfortunately the majority find everything abhorrently wrong with it and think it’s stupid, so we still have some work to do, but we will get there.

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