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Showing posts from September, 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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#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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