Gamification of Learning

If you’ve been in the CICs lately, you might have noticed a wall of games in the HS and puzzles on the second floor of the ES/MS. And both kids and adults are playing. The reason why is simple: games are engaging and give us a a great opportunity to socialize and have fun. This is exactly what’s happening in gamified classrooms across AISC.

If you haven’t come across an a colleague implementing gamification in the classroom or read an article on the topic, the concept is rather straightforward. Gamification is the process of designing aspects of your class around game concepts, especially those from video games. From instituting a system of points or badges to reward achievement to designing complex levels or a player’s journey, employing strategies of game design appears to have a positive impact on student engagement and motivation in the learning process.

If you want to learn more about what is happening around campus, check in with one of the following teachers about what they are currently doing or planning on for future gamification of the classroom:

• Cheri Amarna has implemented a leaderboard and badge system in her course. She uses Moodle to make these components visible to students, which keeps the positive, social competitiveness of games at just the right level to motivate students to push themselves.
• Jason Kennedy and Lauren Schneider with her co-teacher Allyson Clark have implemented leaderboards using a Google Sheet to track students progress on required skills in MS Band and achievement across a range of skills in the 4th Grade, respectively.
• Kevin Crouch created a simple leaderboard to measure progress towards achieving Google Certified Teacher recognition, and it provides a great way to see if you are keeping up with the pace of the course.
• And Marianne Brooks has gamified almost all aspects of her 5th Grade class. Her students have a series of independent levels with different “boss fights” (or learning challenges) for the entire year, there is a badges system which she implements through Edmodo, and the students have even created their own classroom economy, essentially developing their own rewards system in the game.

Gamification is an exciting way to add fun and, more importantly, engagement to student learning. If you want to know more, add a comment below or contact any one of the teachers using this strategy—we all love to share this part of our work. Or, if you want to hear about it more right now, click on the video below about one teacher’s success at gamifying his class.

Game on!

Blended and Self-Directed Learning iLab Teams 2016-17

Our team has several prototypes in the works, each at it's own stage of development:

• Angelia Crouch - HS Personalized Learning Program
• Leontheen - IXL English
• Flor - Differentiation for AbInitio Spanish Students
• Tomas Bohorquez - Blended MS Health Education Class

Each Prototype, in it's own way, will help learners use independent learning skills to deepen their understanding and give them the power of choice to:

• Personalize their learning experiences
• Develop an intrinsic motivation
• Take ownership of their learning beyond the walls of the classroom.

At the same time we believe these prototypes will allow educators to focus attention to mentoring, coaching, and holding students accountable.

Faculty Service Learning

Faculty Service Learning

          

Our vision - Building on AISC’s vision of Service Learning (SEVAI), the Faculty Service Learning Program seeks to facilitate faculty involvement in creating, coordinating and sustaining service projects and interactions. The outcomes of this program should be mutually beneficial to the greater community and AISC.

In order to lead service learning with our students, teachers must lead by example and be engage in service learning themselves.

Service Learning links teaching and learning to an increasingly interconnected world. Assessing genuine needs, developing and implementing sustainable solutions, and reflecting on personal growth and the impact of contributions are key steps of the process.

We will find out about the opportunities through a communication channel of some sort like a blog where all faculty members can post a need or requirement that opens up an opportunity for other faculty members to participate.  

The members of this team are: Alan Phan, Balajee Ginjapalli, Beth Rappe, Bill Hoffman, Correne Larsen, Ilona Horchler, Lakshmi Saravanan, Nigel Holdsworth, and Sharon Petersen.

We will come up with our first prototype shortly and will announce to the AISC community about the upcoming opportunities.  

Pathways to Graduation

The Pathways to Graduation committee is small but mighty!

Our initial work centered around brainstorming possible ideas to consider and examining how these ideas might impact our community. Some creative ideas were brought to the table and we spent some time identifying magnitude of change, ease of implementation, budget implications for each idea.

The group spent time researching how these possible pathways may be implemented in other schools, districts, etc. At our last meeting, after a brief dialogue about the research we've done, the group decided to move ahead with our three lowest magnitude of change ideas as possibilities for prototyping:

· Certificate of Attendance in lieu of HS Diploma
· Endorsements
· Post-Graduate Year

Between now and our next meeting, each of these ideas will be more deeply researched and a draft of each proposal will be written up. We will meet in January to review drafts and make decisions about how to move ahead.

iLab: The Next Phase of Innovation at AISC

Often the march of change and improvement in schools is treated as a very linear process in which program or system is identified, implemented, and reflected on using a fairly simple assumption. This assumption is that if an organization provides vision, skills, incentives, resources and an action plan, then any change initiative will have a high likelihood for success.

There is surely plenty of truth to this, however, one thing organizations have long ignored is where the good ideas come from. Who explores and tinkers, plays and fails with a wide variety of promising ideas looking for the connections to our current and future work?  Where does the vision originate?

Organizations are now beginning to understand that they must cultivate their own engines of innovation to help develop and pursue an ongoing and flexible vision of what schools can be. This engine must take the form of a loose network of individuals and teams, following similar protocols,  that are well-connected to and supported by the school's hierarchical systems of routine.

This innovation network at AISC is the iLab, which interfaces with the school's leadership team and its curriculum teams, known together as cNet, to determine which ideas get passed on and potentially implemented.

The teams active in 2016-17 represent widely varying aspects of teaching and learning at AISC, and together they represent a commitment to innovation and continuous growth as a global leader in this area.

Blended and Self-Directed Learning iLab Team

The Blended and Self-Directed Learning iLab Team set out to prototype resources, tools, and processes that might assist educators in addressing issues associated with: class time and space constraints, designing personalized learning, monitoring the progress of independent learners, and engaging all students encompassing a wide range of readiness, interest, and skill level.

We believe that providing educators with these resources, tools, and processes will, in turn, allow them to enable students to develop the required independent learning skills to be successful lifelong learners, lead their own personalized learning, and explore their passions.

Our team is comprised by the following innovators working on prototypes

• Kevin Crouch - Administrative Supervisor
• Allison Clark - Extend the higher math learners with a self-directed program
• Angelia Crouch - Personalized Learning Program in the HS
• Flor Martin - Learning plan for abInitio students - Unit 2/Sem 1
• Leontheen Briggs - Using Reading Apps - RAZ KIDS
• Salome Verghese - IXL English
• Tomas Bohorquez - Blended Health Class
• Priya Venugopal - Assisting team with prototype technology requirements
• Tom Zuzulock - Assisting team with prototype technology requirements

If you would like to know more about any of the aforementioned prototypes, or if you have an idea you would like us to help you prototype please let us know. We will be happy to share our successful prototypes with you to use as well as our not so successful ones so you can learn from ours and make yours better!

Tomas Bohorquez

Blended and Self-Directed Learning iLab Team Leader

Google Classroom

Question:  Teachers are continually looking for ways to be more effective and efficient in their classrooms.  This iLab on Google Classroom set out to find out if Google Classroom provides more useful features than Moodle.

How Are We Finding Answers To Our Questions: Teachers will be assigned topics and be in charge of collecting data on those topics through the use of appropriate means of communication such as Google Forms as surveys.

Members: Justin Carlson, Tom Zuzulock, Ross Connelly, James Knoebber, Ryan Sager, Heidi Sager, Leena Thomas, Kathryn Ahuja

Completion:  Our iLab is complete once we have had enough time to prototype the online tool as well as collect efficient amounts of data to make an informed decision.  This will ideally be before winter vacation.