Tuesday, October 10, 2023

STaR Hero Journey METRO Event

Upon meeting in the iCreate Lab, my partner Alexander and I have decided that for our project, we could create 3D models of a producer and consumer (flower and butterfly). These 3D models will demonstrate the lifecycle of each. Using a stop motion presentation, we will be able to use the same digital component that represents both of our specific TEKS.

TECH TEK: 3.c1(A) decompose story problems into smaller, manageable subproblems and identify a solution to the problems

We are using AI to generate our STaR Hero Journey story. Our story will contain our specific TEKS that correlate to the METRO Activity.

Gardening TEK: Use measurement to accurately measure plant growth and amount(s) of soil, plant food, etc.

Math TEK 3.7(a): use measuring tools to measure the length of objects to reinforce the continuous nature of linear measurement

In our STaR Hero Journey activity at Metro Elementary, we will have 3D model components of a flower and a butterfly. Our 3D models will be real scaled, life sized models which allows students to measure the length of each model and compare how the flower or butterfly has changed in size during its life cycle.

(insert pictures of models and stop motion demo)

Standards (Check out My Portfolio)

5.3.a Model and learn with students how to formulate computational solutions to problems and how to give and receive actionable feedback.

Students will watch a stop motion presentation that will demonstrate and model the life cycle of producers and consumers in a garden. Students will formulate their own computational solutions to problems consumers can cause in a garden.

5.3.c Plan collaboratively with other educators to create learning activities that cross disciplines to strengthen student understanding of CT and CS concepts and transfer application of knowledge in new contexts.

Since this is a group project, my partners and I will collaborate with one another to deliver the lesson and help students understand CT and CS concepts.

5.4.c Guide students on the importance of diverse perspectives and human-centered design in developing computational artifacts with broad accessibility and usability.

Prepare lesson that demonstrates artifacts with accessibility and usability that is suited for students.

Service for Preparation
AI Story: Lily's Gardening Mission

Once upon a time, there was a young gardener named Lily who loved to grow plants and vegetables in her backyard. She heard about a gardening competition in her town and decided to participate. With the help of her mentor, Lily learned about the importance of measuring the growth of her plants and the amount of soil and plant food needed to prepare for the competition. She faced challenges along the way, including pests and harsh weather conditions, but she persevered and continued to care for her garden with dedication and hard work.

To prepare for the competition, Lily learned about the nutrients that plants need to grow and how to measure her plants' growth. She also learned about the different organisms that make up a garden ecosystem, such as bacteria, fungi, insects, earthworms, and birds. This knowledge helped her create a healthy and thriving garden.

As she approached the competition, Lily met other gardeners who shared their knowledge and expertise with her. She also encountered rival gardeners who tried to sabotage her garden. Lily remained wise and focused on her goal, and she was able to overcome these obstacles.

In the final stage of the competition, Lily faced her greatest challenge yet: a severe storm that destroyed many of her plants. However, Lily remained faithful and did not give up. She used her wisdom to come up with a plan to save her garden and nursed her plants back to health.

In the end, Lily emerged victorious and returned home with the elixir of knowledge and experience. She shared her wisdom with the other gardeners in her village and inspired them to pursue their own gardening journeys. Lily had become a hero in her own right, and her garden had become a thriving ecosystem of organisms working together to support plant growth.

Through her journey, Lily learned the importance of perseverance, wisdom, and faith in the power of nature. Lily's journey can teach us that with hard work, dedication, and faith in the power of nature, we can overcome challenges and achieve our goals. We can also learn the importance of taking care of our environment and the organisms that make up the ecosystem.

Digital MakerSpace:

How will you exemplify a learner response or two? Exemplifying a learner’s response can be done by giving feedback and done in gradual release. This means that easier questions are asked at the beginning and then harder questions after as they have built up knowledge to be able to answer the more difficult questions. It is important to ask questions throughout the duration of the activity. Other than verbal responses, a response by the learner can also be given through a Flip response. How will you make your activity DIGITALLY creative and collaborative among the participants? NearPod will be used to give the lesson. In the assessment portion of the activity, Flip will be used as a response tool for the students. We could also have our story pre-recorded through a Flip video that is in our NearPod so the Hero story automatically plays. This is beneficial because it will be available to go back on if parts of the story need to be retold. How will you promote and support learners toward a CCISD Multimedia fair submission? Promoting students will happen after the Hero Story. We can explain that we used digital creative tool to formulate the story and our lesson, and that they can do it too. We could also even show past work from students and in the end after our activity is finished, we will remind students that they can take what they have learned and continue at home or in school if they have free time. What question and sentence prompts will you use to demonstrate Growth Mindset and Appreciative Inquiry facilitation within your activity? Setting achievable goals and taking steps to get to that goal is one of the first steps I have going into the lesson. I feel that I should also model a growth mindset. “If something is too difficult, do not be afraid to ask for help, overcoming challenges helps us get to our goal.” I can also remind students that “their mistakes are important steps in their learning journey.” Open ended questions that relate to the learning goal will be used during the activity. Open ended questions are good in that they give students to chance to have an individualized answer and answers can vary from student to student. It is also important that questions related to the learning goal are asked to tell me whether students understood the concept and/or if my lesson delivery was efficient. Appreciative Inquiry will be easy to do during the activity because defining and discovery will happen during the Hero Story. Dreaming and designing will happen during the activity this is where students will get inspired to continue what they were working on and deploy or continue the project for the MultiMedia Fair.

NearPod (QR Code below to get students to lesson via phone/tablet) will be used to give lesson and Flip will be used to assess and have student response.


Event Reflection

            

My partner Alex and I were the only ones who showed up to the event on 11/15. We first started in the gym with the KINE students and this is where we got our group of 3rd graders. We had 6 students but by the time the gym part was done we had 3. During the gym event I was able to see the students personalities and was able to see that two of the students may need to be separated. One would not keep his hands to himself and was being distracting to the other. When it was time to switch to my part of the lesson, three 1st graders joined our third grade activity. I did my lesson through NearPod. I had my AI Story pre-recorded but one of the 3rd graders volunteered to read. After he read, a 1st grader volunteered to read and he could only read some of it. I helped him read some of it, but due to time and keeping the other students engaged, I read the rest of the story by myself. After the story, I asked what the students thought of the story and what were some things Lily did during her gardening competition. Thankfully, the students answered that she measured plant growth which was the topic of my lesson and was a great transition from the story to the lesson. From there, we used my poster board that had life size models and measured the components of each stage in the butterfly life cycle and some of the plant life cycle (time was cut short). One of the Metro teachers was watching and said that the 1st graders did not know how to measure when she saw me bring our the rulers for my lesson. Because she stated this, I tried to show the 1st graders that we could use our fingers as an estimate of measurement, but he wanted to use the ruler and was successful in doing so. This is what I would consider to be one of my strengths in this lesson, being able to adapt as needed, if needed. Each student was able to have a turn to measure while one of the 1st graders recorded the measurement after he had his turn. Our group of 3rd and 1st graders worked well with one another and was able to measure the model successfully in our 15 minute lesson. Overall, I think the event went decent. I just wish our whole group was there to facilitate and chime in. I felt like I did all the work instead of it being a "group project".

                   






Tuesday, October 3, 2023

MakerSpace Exploration: Gardening Perimeter and Area Lesson

Gardening MakerSpace 

After looking into the MultiMedia Fair's past student work, I began to examine what applications students had used to create their art. This gave me the idea of using the Concepts app to create a digital garden.

Math TEK: 5.4(H) represent & solve problems related to perimeter &/or area & related to volume.

The student will create Digital Art of a garden that displays how many plants can fit in a flower bed in the Concepts app. This can be done on a tablet device and drawings can be done with a pen that is compatible with the tablet. 

Concepts is a flexible vector-based sketchbook where the user can take ideas from concept to reality. This means that the creator can draw and sketch with realistic pencils, pens, and brushes. Concepts offers an infinite canvas with design tools such as grids, line smoothing, and shapes guides to help with real-world scale and measurements. Concepts is trusted and used by creators at Disney, Apple, Nike, PlayStation, and Illumination Entertainment. 

For this activity, Concepts is a useful tool in that students can use grid lines to ensure a straight perimeter drawing for their flower beds as well as rows and columns for the plants or seedlings the students will choose to add into their project.

Below is an example garden that I did through Concepts. 




This video shows the different features that Concepts offers. In My Garden Demo, I created a fenced perimeter with the dotted line feature. In each dotted perimeter I added either flowers, bushes, or a combination. In the video and for my final dotted perimeter, I added a tree. This was done with the "free features" offered. If students wanted more features, they can pay an additional fee. 

With this Digital Art lesson idea, students can personalize their garden in size and plant details while working on perimeter and area. Students can also submit their work to this years Multimedia Fair. 

For more information this years Multimedia Fair please click the Mulitmedia Fair hyperlink.

Standards 

5.3.a Model and learn with students how to formulate computational solutions to problems and how to give and receive actionable feedback.

Students will get an idea from My Garden Demo, however, students will formulate their own computational solutions to problems as they create their own garden.

5.3.c Plan collaboratively with other educators to create learning activities that cross disciplines to strengthen student understanding of CT and CS concepts and transfer application of knowledge in new contexts.

My group and I will discuss perimeter and area to help students better understand the various CT and CS concepts while using the Concepts App to display the modeled lesson.

(commented on Jackie Prado's and Ellionna Coppage's Blog- this will not be in my blog post later)


STaR Hero Journey METRO Event

Upon meeting in the iCreate Lab, my partner Alexander and I have decided that for our project, we could create 3D models of a producer and c...