Rhys's Teaching Pieces

This week, we are covering everyone's favourite topic... assessments! Thankfully, assessments don't always have to mean number two pencils, multiple choice tests, and sitting in silence. To demonstrates some of the principles of assessment design, I designed a summative assessment to accompany my mini lesson on the history of the atom. (If you would like to view the full lesson, you should only need a Canvas account!) To introduce my assessment, I used a Voki character that previously appeared in my course. Because the free version of Voki doesn't allow you to embed videos, you'll have to visit this link to see the video . I'll be working on fixing this to get it into my canvas course this week! Using avatars can create a more engaging and personal experience for students (Falloon, 2010), and is the first step in making assessment not the worst thing students have every encountered.  For the assessment itself, I used Google Slides to present 7 possible activities, ...

This week, we will be exploring and applying the ideas of teacher-centered and student-centered instruction in the classroom. To do so, I will be using the topic of radioactivity, which is taught in high school chemistry classes as part of the exploration of atomic properties. Teacher-centered instruction methods are based on the teacher providing knowledge to students, and helping them retain it. Lectures are the hallmark of teacher-centricity. Student-centered instruction instead places the teacher in a facilitators role, and the student is put in an active position in the learning process. This can take many forms, including cooperative learning, project based learning, and immersive experiences ("Teaching Methods," n.d.). Part 1 To begin the exploration of radioactivity, students should have recently developed a strong understanding of atomic structure. We will begin the transition to learning about radioactivity with a lesson based on the Madeline Hunter Direct Instructi...

So maybe communollaborating isn't a word. Okay- it definitely isn't a word. But "communication & collaboration tech tools" sounds like a work conference you'd fake a stomach bug to avoid. So now that I've lured you in with a terrible portmanteau (and made you look up the word "portmanteau"?) let's turn to the actual topic at hand. This blog post is in response to a project calling for a redesign of a class element to add communication and collaboration. Not having taught a class before, I'm going with a brand new creation. I've been working on a mini-lesson about the atom  that, if interested, you should need only a Canvas account to enjoy. So here's what we're working with: a Canvas course that follows the development of the atom from its Ancient Greek origins to the modern model in all its quantum glory. I currently have a few pieces of content, but it's still very much in development. It's designed for high school s...

This week, we're doubling down on scaffolding, introducing Bloom's Taxonomy and sending it all into space (well, up to the exosphere at least). This lesson provides sample activities and assessment questions based on the layers of the Earth's atmosphere. Atmospheric layers are then re-layered into Bloom's Taxonomy, implemented with scaffolding, learning theories, and all sorts of educational goodness.  Check it out on FlipSnack  or in the embed below!

This week, we will be examining some Constructivist and Social Learning Strategies through a sample lesson plan exhibiting a "Flipped Classroom" approach. So, what does all that mean? Our topic for this lesson will be soil properties. This is a topic introduced midway through High School Earth & Environmental Science, after students have learned about different types of rocks, weathering and erosion. The goal of this lesson is for students to learn about basic soil composition and be able to identify soil texture (silt/sand/clay composition). To "flip" the classroom, the students will be assigned a short video to watch before class, as homework. To incorporate an element of cognitive constructivism into the video, I used EdPuzzle to add an open ended question to the beginning of the video that asks: "What do you think is the difference between dirt and soil? Is there a difference? How do you use those words differently?" The goal of this question is to...

Hello again! This week, we got bombarded with dozens (hundreds?) of apps, sites, tools, widgets, and gadgets. Our task: to create a video. Sounds simple you say? Just a short, 5-minute video, yes. But simple? Not really. My topic for this four-part series is the historic development of the atom. In the first module, we covered the Ancient Greek origins. This time, I was hoping to breeze through the experiments of the 19th and early 20th centuries that improved the atom from a small sphere to a complicated, charged network of subatomic particles. My goal was to illustrate the evolution of the atom, as well as two of the major experiments. Originally I wanted to use a Khan Academy/whiteboard style video to illustrate these concepts. Of the most commonly used video formats, the Khan Academy style is one of the most effective at engaging students  (Guo, Kim, & Rubin, 2014) .  However, I realized quickly that without a special tablet, it's really hard to draw that wel...

This week, I have read more about accessibility than I ever knew I needed to. Creating accessible online content is not only legally required in many circumstances, it is an ethical obligation to students.  To illustrate some key aspects of ADA compliant content, I'd like to direct you to a Canvas Course I created. Please, check it out (skip the presentations for now, if you will) and hopefully you'll notice a few features that are common to accessible content: All fonts are sans serif and 14pt or above in size as recommended by Rabidoux & Rottmann (2017). All text, throughout the slideshows and narrative, is colored for high contrast with either black on white or light grey/tan, or white on black for easiest reading (Burgstahler, 2017).   Scripts and serif fonts, particularly in light colors, are more difficult to read! (If you can't read the line above, you'll understand my point about the light colors and scripted fonts.) All links are self-describing (they don...