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 * Students Teaching Students ** **Creating Technology Enriched Projects that Put Content and Teaching into Student Hands**

Three Rivers Educational Technology Conference, 2011 Presented by Andrew Halter Instructional Coach, Hampton Twp. School District halter@ht-sd.org

=**Rational** = **//"If you really want to learn something...teach it."//** I couldn't find the exact author of that quote, but most of us have heard it. As teachers, we also understand the full implications of it. Most of us would consider ourselves experts in at least one specific area that we teach, partly because our passions may drive us that way, but mostly because we have taught year after year after year, de-constructing and re-imagining it for our students so they can understand it. We can move freely around in our content because we thoroughly understand it. This is the idea that drives this type of project. Giving students ownership of material so that they can understand it, work with it, and transform it into something that not only makes sense to them, but makes sense to their peers is a great way to make learning rich and sticky (rigorous and relevant). As a new approach to traditional research papers, this technique also requires students to pull material from various sources and various TYPES of sources and instead of copying it, pasting it and rewording it slightly to skirt plagiarism, they have to re organize and transform the information to fit a specific purpose. This presentation will cover tips I have found through my experience with designing and implementing these types of lessons. The approach is applicable to almost any subject area.

According to studies by the National Training Laboratories, a non-profit behavioral psychology group, learning retention by teaching method breaks down as illustrated in the graphic to the right. Although there is some skepticism over this study, the rates seem logical, especially to anyone who has ever taught.

In addition, building lessons to teach peers can help students:
 * Demonstrate a rich understand content
 * Organize material to fit a specific, relevant purpose
 * Design a real world application of the content for an authentic audience
 * Research and pull together multiple medias
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Transform content into something original

=<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">**Building The Foundation** = <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">A project of this type is grounded in the ideas of constructivist learning, inquiry, divergent thinking, project based learning, authentic assessment, and other student centered learning theories that have been around since the earliest days of educational psychology. Theories that seem to constantly resurface under a new buzzword and a slight twist. Whatever the label you give this type of learning, working with a project like this has to start with an open mind, and an open classroom. Teachers can't be afraid to let go of the reigns a little and let students have room to explore, make mistakes, and find meaning through various pathways. Flip the funnel I always tell my teachers. Instead of the wide mouth being at the top, and a place for teachers to dump all of their knowledge into student mouths, the teacher provides little content, but carefully calculated structure and facilitation to guide students to understanding. It is also important to consider that the student output in an approach like this can take a variety of forms that sometimes might not be not clearly envisioned from the outset, unlike when taking a test or an essay when there is a more clearly defined correct or appropriate response.

=<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Start With the End in Mind = <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Even though a project like this gives students multiple, sometimes unpredictable pathways to demonstrating content knowledge, a successful project starts with a well designed assessment that can help as an anchor through every step of the way. I always begin with designing a rubric that is skill specific, content focused and void of tool specific criteria. The latter is important because it takes emphasis off of specific tools and technology skills and puts emphasis more on content specific skills and expectations. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Be prepared for resistance. Students naturally want to know "what's going to be on the test" because that's the way they have been playing the game of education for most of their lives. This approach takes them way out of that comfort zone because they have to identify, summarize and transform information into meaningful chunks when this has always been the job of their teachers. I have found this approach works most seamlessly in a class that is already student centered and used to finding meaning by doing, not by listening to lectures and taking notes. In some classes where this has not been the case, there was indeed a battle: the projects took considerably longer to complete, and fewer final products really reflected the goals of the project, and the teacher added some gray hairs and stress lines by the time the project was complete. Even so, most say they plan on doing it again.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">**Sample Rubric**[[file:Hort Project Rubric.docx]][[file:Modern Materials Application Project Rubric (2011)-1.docx]]

=<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Plan Carefully, Monitor, Adjust = <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">It is difficult to plan for a project of this type and careful consideration should be given to the amount of in-class time necessary. Since online tools can be accessed from home or school library, it is feasible to expect time spent outside of the classroom. Here are some tips I have learned through experience:
 * 1) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Front-load the project with plenty of time and emphasis on RESEARCHING. This means collecting valid, authoritative written information, but also videos, images and other multimedia as resources.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Provide time to ORGANIZE collected materials, especially if designing a website
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Provide a variety of tools and tips/resources for creation (I am building www.tools4students.wikispaces.com to help support student tech-based projects).
 * 4) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Make sure students take ownership of the RUBRIC--If you have examples from previous years, have them use the rubric to asses a good one and a not so good one.
 * 5) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Give time for PEER REVIEW of a "rough draft" of the materials--this is also a good time to have them utilize the RUBRIC
 * 6) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Give time to REVISE accordingly
 * 7) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Check in on the PROCESS--this is where hosting projects on a wiki can come in handy because it gives you a chance to see the work in progress and give formative feedback along the way.
 * 8) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Work in a system to hold INDIVIDUALS accountable. Using an online form to do peer evaluations can be beneficial and provide more anonymity than a piece of paper collected in class.
 * 9) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">PUBLISH the work and actually have students utilize the projects and hold them accountable for learning from them. A wiki makes a great tool for organizing a project like this from start up resources to final projects. Utilize the PROJECT feature of the wiki to keep pages private until you decide to open them up.

=<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Tools = <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;"> The tools I have used most frequently with this type of a project are Wix and Wikispaces, although there are many other applications that lend themselves well to this. These make great foundations for projects like this because students can embed any type of document, video, or other web-based applications to make them dynamic and engaging. For a ton of other web-based applications that could be utilized in a lesson like this, check out Digital Tools for Digital Learners. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">

=<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">**Science Examples** = =<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">**Social Studies Examples** = =<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">**English Examples** = =<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">**Math Examples** = =<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">**Elective Areas** =
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Horticulture - students applied content from a unit on plants and created an interactive, web-based teaching resource to be used in a third grade classroom. The best projects actually got to go and use their website to help plan a lesson for a third grade class.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Chemistry -Students work in groups to design engaging wiki-based webpages to teach the rest of the class properties and applications of modern chemical materials.
 * http://mrceccarelli.wikispaces.com/2011+Biomaterials+P1
 * http://rjdinardi.edu.glogster.com/glog-2207-2494/
 * http://mrceccarelli.wikispaces.com/Ceramics+Pd1
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">AP Chemistry -As an end of the year project, students create videos that highlight real-world relevance of chemistry topics to be used the following year as an introductory piece for each unit.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Psychology -Students take a chapter from the text and had to create an engaging web-based teaching tool using wikispaces. These resources were then presented to the class to cover the material.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Renaissance Project - A slight twist on the idea, students researched, then created mock facebook style pages of historical figures, then worked in small groups to develop a dinner conversation that brought out significant contributions of the figures. Students taught and learned about each others figures through the process.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Grammar -Students were given specific grammatical topics that had been recurring in class writings and were asked to design a wiki page that reviewed the concept. Students then presented their pages to the class and followed up with a self created, teacher approved quiz.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Applied English Strategies (study skills) -Students in this elective designed an online study skills handbook for students to review for a final exam and to reinforce concepts taught throughout the year.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Digital Lit Circles - This is a wiki centered version of traditional lit circles where students are assigned specific roles, then discuss a book in small groups. All discussion is prepared, monitored and delivered by students.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Relevance Videos- as an end of the year project, all of our Algebra II students create a video that reviews concepts covered throughout the year. The objective is to review the concept and demonstrate a real-world application in a creative video. The best of these videos are used to introduce he topics the following year
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Geometry Review- Throughout the year, students are constructing a Wix website that will cover each unit addressed. Students are to include vocabulary, theorums, procedures, properties, etc. as well as a clear relevance connection. These will be used by all students to review for the final at the end of the year
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Health/Wellness -Students were assigned specific sections from the textbook and created interactive websites that presented the information in a more interactive and multi-media fashion. After a review process, students used their peers website to prepare for a test on the covered material.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Computer -students were assigned different free applications for building a website. Their task was to create a website using the given tool that discussed the pros and cons of that specific platform. These were then presented to the class and students used the information to select the most appropriate tool for their next assignment: designing a commerce web site.