Digital Reflections: Graduated Release and Interviews

Digital Reflections: Graduated Release and Interviews

Inspired by: Learn rich by:Ben Richardson

    So I had a few fleeting moments before the bell went today and I thought I would catch up on the blog by my friend/coworker  Ben Richardson, or as I call him Benny R (link in the subtitle). He is exploring how to shift his conversations with students into more of communications with students. He is currently giving a lot of feedback in class but in a more informal way. That forced me to reflect on how effective my feedback currently is, and I've realised the answer is "Not very effective". So the following is my plan on how to remedy that. 

Step 1: Improving the student side (Graduated release)

     This is an iron that I already have in the fire. I have been working on it (rather haphazardly) for the past two weeks. For those of you unfamiliar with graduated release, the mantra goes something like this. "I demonstrate, you watch. I demonstrate again, you help. You do it, I help. You do it on your own". That is the formula for 90% of my math/physics classes and it has worked well for me so far, so why not apply it to (digital) reflections.

    I will use the example of my IT9 class for the remainder of this, but I am doing similar things with my other courses as well, with similar results

    I started this near the end of a unit on Photoshop. I wanted the students to reflect on the major questions I have had them reflect on all semester:  

1. What did I know at the start of this assignment?
2. What did I learn? 
3. Where is the evidence of that learning? 
4. What do I still have to learn going forward? 
5. What problem solving strategies did I employ?

I didn't want to just give them a script to regurgitate, so I gave them an example of my learning about how to use the "animate frames" tool in Photoshop (essentially it makes a simple animation). As I described my learning to the students, I typed it out. This forced me to slow it down a bit, and gave the students something to reference later on. It looked something like this:

"Coming into this learning, I wasn't sure how animating would work on Photoshop. I viewed Photoshop as simply a tool for making pictures. Pictures and videos occupy very different places in my mind. Another teacher reminded me that early animations were just a series of pictures that you flipped through quickly (like a flip book). I had done flip books as a student (sometimes at the corner of my note book when I should have been focusing on something else). So I now had the background knowledge for how animation worked, now I needed the technical knowledge to figure out how to actually get pictures to flip through. I decided to google it. I knew there were teachers that knew how to do this (because I saw them do it), but I also knew that I learn better by being able to reference material as I move through an assignment.

After googling it and working through it in Photoshop, I animated a ball bouncing around the screen. As you can see I used the knowledge of the shape tool in Photoshop to make a ball, then duplicated the layer and moved the ball to make the frames of my animation. When the ball hit the edge of the canvas I added layers where the ball squished, then expanded in a new direction. I stopped making new layers when the ball returned to its original position. That was all old knowledge. The new knowledge came from using the "timeline" tools, using the "create slides from frames" option, and then playing around with the timing of each slide to make the ball look like it was moving smoothly. If I let the frame linger too long the ball looked like it jumped, not long enough and the ball moved too quickly to see. 

I'm not sure how this can be used with real pictures, if I can take a series of photos of people and make it look like an animation. I have seen GIFs that look similar to my animation, so I suspect you can.

I struggled a few times with the timeline tools." I persevered and applied past knowledge to a new situation and I remained open to continuous learning" [tools of the mind PDF #1,8,16 respectively] There is one button that does not have the typical button appearance (I think the shadow on it is too small, so it looks like a title) If you don't press it then the tools required for this don't appear in the timeline menu. This is a common thread for my problems with Photoshop. I had to ask another teacher to show me once quickly how they did it.  Tools not appearing used to throw me off , but I am starting to detect patterns. If tools don't show up, it is usually because there is a setting that is off. For example, if you load a picture that is in grey scale, any setting to do with colour is not available  (because there is no colour to adjust) 

Phew, it looks long on a page, but it only takes about 15 min to go through with a class (less if you type faster ☺ )


Stage 2: The interview- I write you help

This is where I am at the planning stage. Inspired by Ben Richardson's blog "Learn Rich", My plan is to interview 3-4 students every class. I will get the class to start their work for the day, then start at one end of the class list and work my way through (keeping track of who I've talked to on google spreadsheets). I will use an assignment that they have already completed and help them to shape a meaningful reflection out of it. This will ensure two way communication of their learning. I will use the online tool "Fresh Grade" to ensure that the student has that conversation to look back on, and because I have chosen to include the parent in their portfolios, the parent will see the written portion of the conversation as well. I will point out the relevant sections of their assignment and get clarification from the student

Stage 3: The interview - You write and I help

Similarly to the previous stage, I will go through the class list, 3-4 students per day; however, this time I will give them the computer to write the conversations and I will be the more passive one. They will take the pilots seat and I will just nudge them in the right direction where required.

Stage 4: The Summative Assessment- You write, I mark. 

Only at this point, after I have given them plenty of resources for writing a meaningful reflection, will I attach a permanent mark to their work.

This is where things get tricky. With 30 students, it could take 30 classes to get through stages 1-3. In that time there will probably be at least one major assignment that they have done, and several minor assignments that lead up to it. I will still have to provide marks for all those assignments (and reflections). That isn't much of a problem, but because the students will be improving as we go, I have to provide them with the opportunity to re-submit old assignments with their new reflective capabilities.

Any ideas? Thoughts? Criticism? Post them in the comments.