Connect 2014

Goal:  Present Minecraft at Connect 2014

Attendance:  Lee, Rob, 6 Students

Overview:

-  Presented a poster presentation at Connect 2014
-  Had 6 students teacher educator from across Ontario how to use Minecraft
-  All information available on this site.


http://engagewithminecraft.weebly.com

Co-Teach Minecraft

Goal:  To continue to Co-Teach minecraft unit with 5M

Attendance:  Lee Martin, Rob Dunlop

Overview:

-  Based on co-planning earlier in the year, we would be introducing this project and recording evidence of it success for the upcoming Connect Conference
-  due to complication with getting Minecraft on the computers this unit was delayed until now.
-  series of subtask we taught in the classroom to introduce the ideas of area and perimeter.
-  Also, student we given intro task to help them explore and create using mine craft using a scientific investigation approach

-  Success criteria was created by Lee
-  Students were brought into the lab and given their investigation

-  As students worked, Rob captured evidence on their work for website that was being create.
-  Green screen interview we conducted and made into video presented on the website


http://engagewithminecraft.weebly.com

Co-Construct Success Criteria

Goal:  Co-create success criteria for social studies lesson with 5Mac

Attendance:  Martine, Erica, Robert

Overview:

-  We started the lesson off with Mario interrupting the class to introduce the below letter to the class.

-  Used classes negative reaction to generate discussion about how we could change this decision.

-  Guided students into the idea of writing a letter

-  Discussed what the letter might look like

-  Student put into group to write letter

-  Posted, gallery walk

-  Used these lessons to create the gallery walk below

- Next lesson, we used this success criteria and the work they did the day before to teach a mini lesson on letter writing and organization, based on curriculum expectations.

5Mac Social studies and Success Criteria

Goal:  To co-create success criteria together in a social studies activity

Attendance:  Martine MacKenzie, Robert Dunlop, Erica Poor

Overview:

-  discussed where she was at with regards to her PD learning
-  said she was very interested in extending her learning regarding Success Criteria and Learning Goals
-  we looked at where she was at in each of her subject and the best fit to see this co-created with the class.
-  she wanted to focus on social studies so we look through the curriculum to decide which expectations to do.
-  we decided to use a cross curricular approach which will cover both Social Studies and English.
-  This was she could teach the social studies in French and the students could do letter writing in English.

-  Once we selected our curriculum expectations, we created a learning goal and unpacked our success criteria for practice.

See below

Learning Goal:  To write a formal letter to the government that effectively presents a

                              solution to an issue that affects them.

Requirements:

-  3 paragraphs

-  must be to government official

-  must have greeting/salutation

-  follows a template

Social Studies (B1.2, B1.3) - realistic -  specific -  innovative/creatice -  well thought out -  measurable  ??? -  cost effective

Purpose/Organization (1.1 & 1.5) - clear and concise - rationale should be backed up with     evidence - each paragraph has a specific purpose - narrow focus

Day One: Hook Lesson (100 min.)

-  We will start co-teaching.  Interrupted by Mario

-  One week extension to school year for just us.

-  I’ll take over, past experience

-  What are we going to do?  Most effective means to communicate?

-   Select letter – What would our arguments be -  brainstorming.

-   Discuss what should be in the letter -  issue, how we can solve it. 

-   Discuss how this should be organized into graphs

-  Break into groups and write letter to present to Mr. Zeoli (time limit)

Day Two:  Set Up Success Criteria

-  Look back at examples and critique (effective critism) – Gallery walk

-  present learning goal to class

-  Unpack (Rob)

Day Three:  Mini Lesson

-  Format and structure of letter

-  Square

-  Each paragraph needs a specific purpose (multiple points)

-  Give another opportunity in groups.  Give them a topic or article, write a letter.  Perhaps in language.

-  Give them the purpose of the each paragraph  (Address issue, create a plan,

     implementation)

Day Four:  Evaluate letter using success criteria

-  each group will peer evaluate others groups using the set out success criteria.

-  Discuss with class

-  You set up and give out final assignment – Letter to government

Grade 7 Measurement Unit Planning

Goal: To backward design a measurement unit for a grade seven class.

Attendance:  Denise Ibey, Robert Dunlop

Overview:
-  Wanted to really focus unit off the curriculum and weed out unnecessary teaching-  Review curriculum
-  Decided to focus on measurement conversions and area of composite shapes and trapezoids.
-  Will focus on volume more in term three.

Here are the lessons/investigations that we created for this unit.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1QTCzUprTwINEplX2gwbjFfeE0/edit


https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1QTCzUprTwINTMzU1Z0OUtFb3M/edit


https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1QTCzUprTwIcWwwVk1acjJtOEk/edit

8 English- Science Investigation

Goal:  To create a science lesson using the curriculum documents (outside of the text book).

Attendance:  Jake Allcock, Robert Dunlop

Overview: 

-  Looked a current program and how Jake is covering his material.
-  Wanted to make sure that all concepts were connecting to curriculum documents.
-  Noticed that document was not lining up directly too curriculum.
-  Discuss the importance of looking at the verbs in the curriculum to guide our instruction.
-  Decided to pick an expectation and create a lab based directly on a curriculum expectation.
-  This was the expectation that we choose.  Did not address this in text book.

-  We wanted to do something more hand on, away from the text book, so we decided to create a scientific investigation for this.
- We watched video on youtube and looked up online lessons
-  Check out to see what materials we had in the school
-  Then created this.

Name:______________________________

Density of a Liquid Investigation

Purpose: To build a hydrometer and explore the density with regards to liquids.

Materials: straw, clay, water, beaker, spoon, measuring, spoon

Procedure:

1. Using the clay provided, seal off one end of the straw so that water is unable to seep through.

2. Fill the graduated cylinder up to 200 ml using the water provided.

Note: The water will form an arc curve called a meniscus. Read your water level from the

bottom of this arc.

3. Place your straw in the water, sealed side down. You want the open end of the straw no more than 2.5 cm from the top of the container. You will need to cut the straw and add enough weight in clay to allow the straw to stand straight up.

4. Carefully remove your hydrometer from the water, pinching it where the water meets the air. Draw a red line to indicate the beginning water level (zero). Now that your hydrometer is calibrated for “pure” water, mark lines above and below this line that are 1mm apart using a different coloured marker.

Note: Each line above the red line will be noted at +1, each line below the red line will be noted

-1 (on the chart below).

5. With the calibrated hydrometer out of the water, add 5 ml of salt to the water and stir until salt is dissolved. Place the hydrometer back into the beaker and observe and record the changes in level of the hydrometer on the chart below. Repeat these steps for the follow amounts of salt provided in the chart.

Grams of Salt Added	Change in Level	Observations
5
10
15
20
25
30

Guided Questions: Use the Particle Theory discussed in class to help you answer the questions

below.

1. Explain your observations and why you think that this happened each time you added salt.

_________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. Could you make connection from what you observed in this this experiment to something that
   you have experienced in your life?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If the experiment was to continue, eventually the salt would no longer dissolve into the water.

3. Why do you think that this is? (Remember to use particle theory)
   ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. If we were to boil the salt water in your experiment until all of the water was gone you would
   be left with salt in the beaker. Why? ( Remember to use particle theory)

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Once we tried and completed this experiment.  We discuss how this would be assessed using a rubric that would be created off the success criteria.

I showed and explain the success criteria that Jack and I created and offer to set up for him in his classroom and he needed help

Minecraft Critical Thinking Task (Session 2)

Goal: To complete set up for Minecraft critical thinking task

Attendance: Lee Martin, Rob Dunlop

Overview:

- Reviewed additions made to procedures and guided questions.

- Solidified links to social studies curriculum (A. 2.3, A.3.4) and math curriculum. Confident that they are aligned effectively to culminating task.

 

Social Studies

–         A2.3 analyse and construct maps as part of their investigations into interactions among and between First Nations and Europeans (e.g., thematic maps showing physical features that influenced settlement patterns, agricultural practices, or the habitat of animals that sustained the fur trade; historical maps that show First Nations territory at the time of contact or the expansion of New France

–         A3.4 identify significant offices and institutions in New France (e.g., the seigneurial system; the Roman Catholic Church; the king, governor, bishop, and intendant; nuns, priests, missionaries), and describe their importance to settlers in New France “What effect did the seigneurial system have on the way land was divided and developed?”

Mathematics

–        determine, through investigation using a variety of tools (e.g., concrete materials, dynamic geometry software, grid paper) and strategies (e.g., building arrays), the relationships between the length and width of a rectangle and its area and perimeter, and generalize to develop the formulas [i.e., Area = length x width; Perimeter = (2 x length) + (2 x width)];

–        solve problems requiring the estimation and calculation of perimeters and areas of rectangles

–        determine, through investigation, the relationship between capacity (i.e., the amount a container can hold) and volume (i.e., the amount of space taken up by an object), by comparing the volume of an object with the amount of liquid it can

–        contain determine, through investigation using stacked congruent rectangular layers of concrete materials, the relationship between the height, the area of the base, and the volume of a rectangular prism, and generalize to develop the formula (i.e., Volume = area of base x height)

- Lee addressed concerns about giving students more guided practice.

- Decide to create a lead up assignment to give students practice, to work out any issues and to help build success criteria off of.

- After brainstorming, we decided to have student “Design Mr. Martin's Backyard”.

- We discussed our pedagogical approach to this assignment and agreed we would keep it very similar to culminating task. However, we would give less details as this assignment would become the basis of teaching perimeter, area and volume/capacity.

- Decided that we needed to extend the culminating task to include volume and capacity.

- Create the investigation for the “backyard planning”

- Developed and tweaked learning goal. Also, made predictions to what students would be able to come up with as success criteria.

 

Learning goal: To effectively demonstrate an understanding of perimeter, area and volume of

                          rectangles and cubes using Minecraft.

Unpack

- Proper Units

- Correct Forumlas

- Clear communication of math

- Variety of dimensions

- Guide Questions (Relationships)

- Accuracy

- Labels

- Decided that this would be tweaked more after the first assignment and that we would wait to make rubric to make it more authentic to the students with regards to their wording and ideas.

Next Steps:

- To get MinecraftEDU installed in the lab (waiting on a response)

- Lee to create graphic organizers for both investigations

- Set up 'World' in Minecraft MOD