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Showing posts from 2018

101. The Transformative Power of AI

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Folks, let’s face it. Our classrooms are going to look a little different this year. AI, specifically ChatGPT, is going to change the way we design learning experiences and assess student mastery. I’ll be honest, when I first explored the ChatGPT platform I was terrified. As I have dug deeper into the technology and its capabilities, I realized that while it does pose significant challenges — it also presents us with some pretty amazing opportunities. In this series, we will explore what AI is capable of, its implications in the classroom, and how it can benefit both teachers and students. Let’s start by examining where we have been, where we are currently, and looking forward to where we are going. Whether this is a trip you wanted to go on or not, the AI train has left the station and it is time for all of us to jump on board. From Card Catalogs to Artificial Intelligence I belong to the micro-generation called Xennial. Xennials are considered to be a “bridge” between Generation X a
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#17. NCSS Chicago 2018

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NCSS 2018 HOLY SMOKES!  The NCSS Conference was amazing!!  Seriously, it was some of the best professional development that I have ever received.  It was truly inspiring to be surrounded by such passionate educators.    I was able to re-connect with old friends, finally meet people who I "knew" but had never met in person and establish new connections with teachers who are currently, or will soon be, teaching blended AP Psych.   The presentation options were limitless. I spent most of the first day in the designated psych room but was able to stretch my legs and see an entertaining  presentation by a NPR host, Peter Sagal.  He is hilarious!  If you have not attended NCSS before, I highly suggest that you look into it for next year.   On a side note, if you are a psychology teacher, I highly recommend that you consider joining the NCSS Psychology community. It is $30 for a lifetime membership!  You will receive access to ALL of the psychology presentations from NCSS Ch
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#16. Research Methods - Unit Planner, Blended Lesson and Data

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We are rapidly approaching the midterm of the semester and  just wrapped up the research methods unit.  When I began teaching AP Psychology, I dreaded teaching research.  It seemed so dry and boring.  Over time, I have grown to love this unit because it sets the stage for the rest of the year.  It emphasizes that psychology is a science and provides the empirical lens to critically analyze the  content for the remainder of the class.   I did not find that this unit lent itself to blending the curriculum as easily as other units.  I think this is due to the limited amount of time that we spend on the unit and the type of material covered.  However, I could easily see an in-depth research project fitting the blended model perfectly!  The flex days would provide ample opportunity to meet with students to discuss their research designs and findings. I have struggled with implementing this type of project due to the time constraints of covering all of the material by May.   Unit Plan Fo
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#15. The Data: The Good, the Bad and the Unknown

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This year I have been granted the opportunity to pilot blended AP Psychology at Cary-Grove High School.  I have been enjoying re-envisioning my curriculum and it has sparked a new sense of creativity in my lesson design.   Study Overview:  The purpose of my study is to determine the efficacy of the blended model.  I teach three sections of AP Psychology; two sections follow a traditional method and one selection follows a blended method.  The students who elected to take AP Psychology were randomly assigned a section.   First Data Points!!:   I am excited to have my first set of data points to analyze.  My students took their first unit test last week.  It covered History, Perspectives and Cognitive Processes (Chapters 1, 7A and 7B) from Meyer's 1st ed.  It consisted of 50 questions, multiple choice.  The test questions were drawn from previously released AP exams and the Meyer's test bank.   When I first looked at my data, I was pretty bummed.  The blended clas
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#14. Parent's Night

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Parent's Night - Blended AP Psychology Change is hard.   Even when the change is good, even when you initiate the change, it's still hard ... and scary...and stressful. Change is not just hard for the teachers or the students, it's hard for all of the school's stakeholders.   Therefore, a  critical part of the blended learning pilot program at our school focused on strong communication with all of our stakeholders.   Stakeholder Concerns The implementation of blended learning at Cary-Grove High School presented a number of challenges from a variety of stakeholders; teachers were concerned about how this would affect their courses, students were concerned about the amount of work that would be required of them, other staff members were concerned about how the flex days would affect their roles in the school, and the parents were concerned about if this class was the best fit for their students.  As a district, we decided it was imperative to be proactive and addres
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#13. Blended Lesson: Creativity and Problem Solving

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What is one amazing benefit to a blended classroom?  The easiest, most accessible sub plans ever!  Next week, I will be attending a training on our new LMS, Canvas.  According to my pacing calendar, the topic for this day is creativity and problem solving.  In the past, this lesson revolved around a lot of in-class discussion; we crafted a definition of creativity, created examples of convergent and divergent thinking and discussed the TED Talk, "Do Schools Kill Creativity?"  Now, since I am using a blended methodology, I do not need to lose a day or change my schedule! I just need to change my method of instruction and assessment.   Here is an overview of what we will be doing. It appears as the student will see it in Canvas. I embedded the activities in my description below, however; the entire lesson page has been uploaded to Canvas Commons.  I LOVE the look of the page and how all of the links are embedded within the same document.  If you have access to Canvas (it
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#12. Let's Flex with Memory Hackers!

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Ready, Set, Go!    We are one week into our new school year and are rapidly approaching our first flex day(s) in blended AP Psych! If you would like to see how this lesson fits into the larger unit, check out my Unit Overview. ---->> Our first flex days are scheduled for 8/24 and 8/27.  I am so excited!! Memory Hackers Blended Lesson  The following lesson was designed to take place over (2) flex periods of 45 minutes each.  This lesson involves watching a documentary, participating in a class discussion online, describing and applying 6 key learning strategies and analyzing blog posts about cognitive psychology.  I have been piloting Canvas as part of my blended learning pilot and I LOVE it!  I uploaded this lesson directly to Commons in Canvas (titled 2.3 Memory Hackers) so you can import it directly into your own course.  It is free to create a Canvas course.  Lesson Overview:  1. Students watch the documentary "Memory Hackers" and post to the cla
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#11. Blended AP Psych Syllabus and Pacing Guide

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Updates to Syllabus: The 4th of July marks the halfway point in the summer for me and it is usually when I start preparing for the next year.   We go back August 13th, so if you are one of the lucky ones who go back after Labor Day I hope you can turn off your brain for a bit longer , bookmark this page and come back to it later.  This year, I have more reflecting, processing and prepping to do than usual as I transform my traditional AP Psychology course into a blended course.  My first step was to develop a course syllabus.  I have detailed some of the major changes that I made to my traditional syllabus below.  There is a link to my syllabus in its  entirety at the end of this post. 1. Pacing Guide:   I made some adjustments to my unit order and pacing calendar for the 2018-2019 school year.  Last year, I switched the order of my units and taught the memory portion of the Cognition unit first.  This was based on feedback that I had received from the students the previous ye
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#10. it up with my Mix Map!

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Let the planning begin! It is officially summer!! Which means it is time for me to start planning for next year...   If you have been following my blog, you know that I will be teaching 2 sections of traditional AP Psychology and 1 section of blended AP Psychology next year.   It will be my first time teaching a blended course.  I will be evaluating the efficacy of the blended model throughout the year using quantitative and qualitative data to  to determine if it is more effective, less effective or as effective as the traditional model that I have used in previous years. I began my planning process by mapping what my first two units (history and cognition) in AP Psychology will look like using the traditional model.  I made a few adjustments to my lessons from the previous year, but kept the majority of the assignments the same.  My planning went smoothly until I tried to convert my current lessons into a blended format and then I got STUCK. I decided to take a step back and cre
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