A Win Win Situation

With only a week and a half left in our school year, my students held a classroom meeting to tell me what they wanted to work on to end the school year. As you can imagine, I was scared and excited at the same as I really didn't know what they were going to propose.

Well, they said they wanted to use the Chromebooks to play games on the Internet. I immediately laughed out loud and then noticed that they weren't laughing. In fact, they were dead serious. One of them spoke up and said that they know that I wouldn't allow them to simply "play" so they wanted me to help them attach a writing task to it. They said that it wouldn't be wrong to play Internet games if they were learning something, especially in writing!!!! 

You have to know that this group included many reluctant writers at the start of the school year. They lacked confidence and were uninterested when it came to writing. So, the fact that they want to do some learning/work in writing in order to play some Internet games tells me that they have come a long way and are ready to be challenged when it comes to what they value.

How could I refuse?

We got to it straightaway by creating an anchor chart about 'how to write a journal entry'.

We talked about the requirements and then we created an organizer to help with the beginnings of our journal entries - a guide to help us, a rough draft.

Then we talked about the type of games that we might play. They told me about a race car game so we did a quick google search and found it. It's called Formula Racer. I played the game a couple of times to get the hang of it and then played it to gather information/experience for my journal entry. The students sat on the carpet and watched the interactive whiteboard as I modeled the what to do.

I then completed the rough draft organizer, made some edits/revisions (with their help), and then completed the polished copy. We thought it would be a good idea to add a visual so I grabbed a screen shot and inserted into my Google Doc.

This was such a fun experience! The students and I used our knowledge and experience around the writing process to create expectations for this activity and then scaffold the task in order to lead us to work that we would be proud to publish. Although this is all "my" work - it was part of the the gradual release of responsibility model that we have been using all year.

Now that the students were comfortable with the task, I set them free to research what game they wanted to use and provide them with support and guidance as they went through the process.

As usual, they rose to the occasion. For the past week and a half they have been feverishly working away - researching, writing, playing, editing, revising, and publishing.

Here is what the task looked like on paper - for this particular student it involved an organizer, one rough draft, and a good draft:

Once students had completed a draft considered to be publishable, they grabbed a a Chromebook or a Desktop computer and used Google Docs to create a clean copy with an image to be shared via Google Drive with their friends and family and to be published in our classroom for all visitors to see. Here we have a handful ready for the classroom wall:

Students who finished first were given the option to create another journal entry or assist their classmates by acting as coaches. No one created a second entry, they opted to act as experts and assist their friends with using Google Docs, taking screen shots and saving them to their Drives, and editing and revision. 

Once everyone had completed the task, we put our work up for all visitors to the classroom to see.

Don't tell them this....but in reality they spent 15% of their time "playing" and 85% of their time demonstrating their knowledge and understanding, communicating it to myself and their classmates, applying skills they have learned throughout the school year, and providing evidence of their thinking. I told my students today that the way this task came together and the effort and collaboration they demonstrated was the best gift they could possibly give me and that it is one that I will remember and refer to for a long time to come. 

What an amazing way to end the school year. Activities like this have helped my students develop into creative/innovative thinkers and technologically literate collaborators. They have had fun blending their learning and rising to the challenges that I have provided them with. 

The end of our journey together will come tomorrow. Although it will be sad to go our separate ways, I am filled with joy and excitement for what they have accomplished, for the amazing things they will do, and the unforeseen problems they will help to solve as capable members of our society.