{"success":true,"data":[{"ID":246,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1351821994,"CreatorID":62,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"Students as Teaching Resources","Handle":"Students_as_Teaching_Resources:2","ShortDescription":"A conversation involving educators and how we can involve students in planning, implementation, and assessment within the classroom. A practical approach for educators who would like more student investment and ownership in education.","Description":"Utilizing students in the classroom is not a new idea. Educators understand the impact on motivation and engagement when students have a voice and meaningful responsibility. Unfortunately, initiating and sustaining such student involvement is timely and stressful. What responsibilities do you hand over and how do you monitor the student's achievements? When can you make the students responsible for teaching and in what context? What are the benefits and challenges? These types of questions were raised when we started a program called SIRS, or Students as Integrated ResourceS. The students volunteer and come in after school to participate in a hands on activity. We discuss challenges, understandings, and possible mistakes. When their peers do the same activity in class, these specially trained students act as teachers; answering questions, helping with procedures, monitoring safety, and even engaging the unmotivated individuals. The SIRS have become an integrated and a necessary part of the class, such that recently, a student who raised their hand for help, and saw me coming, said \"No, no. I want a SIRS.\" We would like to share the implementation strategies we used and how we are sustaining the program with other educators. In addition, we would like to extend the conversation to include other classes and subjects. Does the SIRS program have wide-spread application? How can it be adapted to fit teachers and students schedules? How do we measure the success of the SIRS in the data-driven environment of education? What are the barriers to creating meaningful student involvement?\r\n\r\nIn summary, we would like to create a critical friends group to analyze our best practices for involving students in daily instruction and invite others to analyze their best practices as well.","Link":["http:\/\/www.nsrfharmony.org\/protocol\/doc\/success_ana_individuals.pdf","http:\/\/www.soundout.org\/teaching.html","http:\/\/www.anastaciabrie.com"],"Audience":["High School","Middle School","All School Levels"],"Practice":"1. In heterogeneous groups, share an experience of student involvement or student voice or student integration in a classroom that you consider to be the best. Reflect and answer the question: \"What made this experience so different from others?\"\r\n2. Develop a common definition of best practice concerning student involvement in a class room. Define it by what it looks like, sounds like, and what is measurable - for a teacher or for a student. Each group creates their own document (chart paper? google document? post-it notes - can be flexible). Use prior experiences that you just shared.\r\n3. Video of students participating in a SIRS class\r\n4. Any clarifying questions about the student teaching program from the video?\r\n5. Analyze what we saw - how does it match our definitions? how is it different? What does it have in common with your personal experiences? what is different? What can we measure? (or even should we \"measure\" it - but that might be an entirely new conversation.)\r\n6. From that analysis, any extension questions or insights or adaptations?\r\n7. Group Work: How can I extend my best practices for student involvement in the classroom - not just engagement, but meaningful participation in the teaching itself? What can I take back to my classroom? School? or even District?\r\n8. Wrap-up and reflection","Presenter":["Anastacia Brie","Grace O'Keeffe"],"PresenterAffiliation":["Hudson Highschool of Learning Technologies"],"PresenterEmail":["abrie@hudsonhs.com","gokeeffe@hudsonhs.com"],"ScheduleSlotID":6,"ScheduleLocationID":4,"SubmitterID":62,"AdditionalComments":"I have to share that I got a lot of inspiration from attending EduCon conferences in the past. Just listening and sharing with others about new ideas and strategies for engaging students. I adapted the SIRS program after a conversation with a student who participated in the student teaching program at the Science Leadership Academy. We couldn't utilize seniors, because we don't have any at the moment, so I had to use the kids in the class. It took me two years to develop and sustain the program. So thanks so much. EduCon has made a difference in my practice. With this application, I am hoping to give back!","LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":2},{"ID":223,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1351763132,"CreatorID":62,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"CoderDojo: World-wide Youth Coding Club Movement","Handle":"CoderDojo:World-wide_Youth_Coding_Club_Movement","ShortDescription":"What is CoderDojo? Is it important to the educational landscape? What resources are needed to support and encourage the creation of CoderDojos around the country?","Description":"CoderDojo is a movement oriented around running free not-for-profit coding clubs for young people. It was founded in Ireland in 2011 by James Whelton and Bill Liao. There are now over 125 CoderDojos in 22 countries around the world. Albemarle County Public Schools (ACPS) in Charlottesville, Virginia held its inaugural CoderDojo Summer Academy, August 6-9, 2012.  The initial goal for the Academy was to host 50 students. Those slots were taken up in the first few minutes of registration, so the program was expanded to 200 while over 700 applied! ACPS is now seeding CoderDojos around the district\u2019s feeder patterns.\r\n\r\nDuring this conversation we want to explore the phenomenon of CoderDojo. What is it and why the appeal? Is it important to the current educational landscape? What might CoderDojo look like in different communities and settings? We also want to build a list of resources, best practices, advocacy tools, etc. that would help encourage the creation of CoderDojos around the country.","Link":["http:\/\/coderdojo.wikispaces.com\/"],"Audience":["All School Levels"],"Practice":"We'll give a brief overview of CoderDojo and capture any additional questions about it. We\u2019ll then lead a facilitated discussion to address the questions we\u2019ve all posed about this movement as well as begin to collaboratively build a resource that can be used by those interested in starting a CoderDojo.","Presenter":["Kim Wilkens","Vincent Scheivert"],"PresenterAffiliation":["Teen Tech Girls (Wilkens)","Albemarle County Public Schools (Scheivert)"],"PresenterEmail":["techkim@kimxtom.com","vscheivert@k12albemarle.org"],"ScheduleSlotID":8,"ScheduleLocationID":4,"SubmitterID":62,"AdditionalComments":null,"LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":2},{"ID":220,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1351734931,"CreatorID":62,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"Gain by Giving Up: Beyond Zero Sum Schedules","Handle":"Gain_by_Giving_Up:Beyond_Zero_Sum_Schedules","ShortDescription":"Behind every scheduling conflict lies the assumption that academic scheduling is a zero-sum game. We reject that notion, and the tug of war mentality that pits science against humanities against arts. Join a group of educators committed to improving personal and academic learning through flexible structures and student choice.","Description":"We are classroom teachers, librarians, learning specialists, and teaching coaches, and we\u2019re constantly frustrated by the pre-portioned TV-Dinner approach to scheduling and curriculum. Asserting that the 45 minute period doesn\u2019t help students is nothing new, but it persists as the primary tool schools use to achieve equity for diverse subjects.  Our claim is that longer, less structured periods of cross disciplinary learning and exploration are not only better for student learning and engagement, but they have tangible and observable benefits for all subjects and classes.  This is not just that students learn more from these open-ended projects, but that when given the opportunity for this sort of learning they learn and perform better in traditional classes as well.\r\nThis conversation will present evidence and anecdotes from our broad experience and from other Educon participants. Materials and stories will be collected and shared on our blogs and via #NoZeroSum. Our session building a repertoire of repeatable experiments and best practices. If this assertion is correct, that students with access to open learning environments also perform better on traditional modes of assessment, then a compiled source of examples and information will help teachers everywhere make changes in their own environments.","Link":["http:\/\/breakthebell.com"],"Audience":["All School Levels"],"Practice":"Contribute ideas and reflections to breakthebell.com directly or via your own posts tagged with #BreakTheBell.  The goal is to bring in our library of experience, and then open a conversation space to add to those stories and support educators in their own #breakthebell experiments.","Presenter":["Andrew Carle","Jodi Kittle","Melissa Scott","Carey Pohanka","Melanie Barker"],"PresenterAffiliation":["Flint Hill (Oakton","VA)","St. Christopher's School (Richmond","VA)","Collegiate School (Richmond","VA)"],"PresenterEmail":["mbarker@collegiate-va.org","pohankac@stchristophers.org","acarle@flinthill.org","jkittle@flinthill.org","mscott@flinthill.org"],"ScheduleSlotID":9,"ScheduleLocationID":4,"SubmitterID":62,"AdditionalComments":"Find all of our resources and continue the conversation at breakthebell.com.","LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":2},{"ID":243,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1351821760,"CreatorID":62,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"Self-Care for Selfless Educators & Advocates in the Movement","Handle":"Sasha_Fierce_and_Self-Care_for_Social_Justice","ShortDescription":"Self-care is often an afterthought for educators, social justice activists, and ed reform advocates.  This interactive workshop will explore the responsibility we have to connect self-care with leading change; how pop culture, race and gender shape our ideas about personal sustainability; and how to support each other in allyship.","Description":"Literary activist Audre Lorde once declared, \u201cCaring for myself is not self-indulgence.  It is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.\u201d Self-care is often an afterthought for social justice activists.  The same is true in the movement for education reform.  Every child and their family deserve equitable opportunities to learn and live well, and educators and advocates work tirelessly in service of that belief.  No question: it\u2019s in our nature to nurture.  At home, at work, in the classroom and in our communities, we selflessly take care of everyone else before ourselves\u2014if at all.  But it is critical to remember that sustaining this depth of leadership requires sustaining ourselves. \r\n\r\nIn a society that defines strength by one\u2019s capacity to survive, the broad messages we receive about caring for ourselves are to toughen up through overwhelming circumstances and that it is only when we suffer the inevitable burn out that we should make time for self-care.  This interactive workshop will explore the responsibility we have to connect self-care with leading change.  Participants will learn:\r\n\r\n\u2022\thow pop culture, race, and gender shape our ideas about when, how and why to care for ourselves\r\n\u2022\thow to develop unapologetically selfish, specific approaches to personal sustainability; and\r\n\u2022\thow to support each other through our intersecting journeys.","Link":[],"Audience":["All School Levels"],"Practice":"Interactive workshop","Presenter":["Michaela Pommells","Reagen Price"],"PresenterAffiliation":["Coalition for Racial Justice"],"PresenterEmail":["Michaela@corajus.com","reagen@corajus.com"],"ScheduleSlotID":14,"ScheduleLocationID":4,"SubmitterID":62,"AdditionalComments":null,"LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":2}],"conditions":{"Status":"Accepted","ConferenceID":2,"ScheduleLocationID":4},"total":4,"limit":false,"offset":false}