Michelle Berry's Portfolio 2010Introduction
Hi! Welcome to my on-line portfolio! I use SO much on-line material, that I thought it would be easiest to direct you to those electronic resources, well, electronically! To the left, you will see links to the major required components of the portfolio. Some of my material is still in the old-fashioned hard copy. Please see the three-ring binder I've given Susan for that material. Below are narrative descriptions of each of the portfolio categories.
Sample Assignments and Lesson Plans:
If you click on the links to the left, you'll see the big assignments for the semester for each course. Within the assignment page, you will find links to specific assignments. The USAID assignment in APGOV this semester is a great example! Another example is the Global Times project the Freshmen in World History completed for Big Era 1(10,000-BCE to 500 CE).
The steps in our projects are generally my daily lesson plans. Some more detailed explanation for each class follows.
APUSH:
The major exception to my project/problem based teaching is AP US History because in this course we are more content driven. Hence, the daily lesson plan objectives are usually to get at the required content for the day in the quickest way without sacrificing critical thought and reflection. As a result, the primary lesson plans for each day are lecture, writing (and discussing) Theme Wrap Up papers (TWPs), and discussion and critical analysis of primary sources based on the guidelines found in this document (you need to be signed into your STG email to access this Google Doc. I am not sure I understand why...but I couldn't get it to just post to my website). The Theme Wrap Up Paper rubric may be found here. Every now and then we get to do something fun like the Constitutional Ratification project, the Witchcraft activity, or the Civil War Paper and Debate. Mostly we just cram content and still try to have fun.
World History:
World History has been such fun because it begs for projects! And since it is not AP, we are freer to move in whatever direction we want. We have done both student led discussions, traditional lecture, and LOTS of collaborative learning. We have also tried to think about the world today through our "World Now" wiki. Students find articles of interest, link the articles, sometimes begin on-line conversations about the topic, and always lead the class in the discussion of the topic.
The World Now component of the class was developed to get students to understand how World History relates to our world today and how it can be relevant to students' lives. We also worked toward relevancy in the first week of school with the "Connect to the World Project.
Sample Lesson Plan for World History "Connect to the World Project"
Another primary objective for me in the this class is for the students to critically analyze trends in world history. An ongoing trend is imperialism (cultural, political, and economic). We will do more with this next semester, but we began to consider imperialism in the Classic Era with the World History Critical Analysis of Imperialism.
We have done several collaborative projects. They wrote questions for their final exam in groups. In pairs, they created Review Board games for their Final Exam review. But our biggest collaborative project this semester was the Big Era 1 project. The final project may be found here -- "Global Times Magazine". The project plan is here. And two of the assessment tools are listed below.
Peer critique for article project
APGOV:
In APGOV, students lead much of the class, including our class discussions on the 6 major themes of government that we study in the first semester. They post blogs on the readings for which they are resonsible and those may be found on our APGOV Blog. Students also lead discussions on current events. To get at the opinion of the class and to think about the subjectivity of polling (and then to think critically about the use of public opinion polling for elected leaders' guidance) we post polls and vote on them as a class. You may see sample polls also on the blog site.
In APGOV this year we undertook a documentary that is not quite finished (lesson plan linked above). We had several steps, including the Design portion of the assignment. The design lesson plan had students brainstorm in their small groups what components each group was going to bring to the larger project. The Google Form was sent to them and they filled it out (including signing the bottom responsibility commitment).
Sample Rubrics:
You will find sample rubrics at the bottom of each homepage. I have rubrics for almost every graded aspect of my courses. Participation rubrics may be found on the assignment pages (linked at the left).
Collaboration rubrics are my latest and most frustrating projects. You may see the latest incarnation of my collaboration rubric (used mostly in APGOV and World History). I have students grade the others in their groups and themselves using this rubric. I then assess them also using the rubric and the average score of all the rubcris is their collaboration grade (so the collaboration grade is...well...collaborative).
Sample Student Work
It is in hard copy form with Susan.
Course Evaluations
They are in hard copy form, but the aggregate data may be viewed here. The narrative comments from students are better read on the hard copies!
Self-Evaluation
I can't believe it has been 5 years! I usually move on after 5 years. In all of my previous careers/jobs, 5 years was the limit. I would find myself unchallenged and thus unsatisfied. I can honestly say that teaching at St. Gregory has been one of the most gratifying undertakings of my life. My students continue to inspire me to do things better. They make me want to understand my topics more deeply. They make me want to work harder. I am challenged everyday here. And that is why I love it.
Having said that, there is so much I don't like about teaching here. I still can't get used to the AP curriculum. Luckily, I really only have one AP course at this point because the pressure is off in APGOV. Seniors don't tend to take the exam, and they tend to love the funky approach (more on this in a minute) I take in the course and feel it prepares them exceedingly well for college and for democratic citizenship.
In general, at STG, I still find that there is not enough class time to REALLY teach the way I want to...but that will never change it appears and so I am working my way around that constraint.
I don't love that I make mistakes. Daily. I don't think my students love that either! ha! The best I can say about that is that I have a relatively small ego and saying "sorry" and "oops" is not difficult for me. The one thing I could see driving me away from this place is that I often find myself feeling overwhelmed by all the work here. Most exhausting is the weekend time spent in endless hours of grading. I do it to myself. No one forces me to assign over 50 pages of writing/semester for the juniors, 20 pages for the freshmen, and 70 for the seniors. I do it because I know it to be an essential skill to master before heading to college. But the grading often takes energy away from the creativity necessary to teach the way I want to teach. And between basketball, and now diversity club (with our increasing special events), I find myself wholly committed the 10.5 months we are in school. You can't make up for "life" in 6 weeks of summer. Finding balance here is what I have failed at most profoundly...and it's what I seek to fix most urgently.
Pedagogically my work here is exceedingly rewarding, especially with Jonathan at the helm. I feel empowered and understood by him. I share his educational philosophy totally. My courses have always (even in my college days) been project and/or problem based. History lends itself perfectly to this approach to teaching. I teach history because I think that through historical deliberation you can learn a myriad of other things - including communication skills, problem solving skills, critical reading/thinking skills, etc - while thinking in stories (which is what all humans naturally do).
It was such fun to reread my evaluation from 2006! And I am really proud to say that I have met almost all my goals. My goals were:
1) to improve my grading (especially my grading of writing) and my feeling about grading.
2) to incorporate more technology (especially discussions boards)
3) to think about and diminish the anxiety I had about my approach to assessments (no in class assessments that looked like traditional "tests")
4) to figure out a better way to teach AP and still feel as though we were taking time to really polish our skills and think analytically and creatively about the content.
I will address each of these in turn:
1) I am happy to say that I have read extensively about grading writing and have improved! I have asked our English department how they grade writing. As head of the history department, I have begun conversations in the History Department about our approaches to grading (writing and other assignments). I have tried to tweak my rubrics so they continually get better (more explanative and clearer). I will NEVER love to grade...but I am at least feeling better and better about it. I brought my "participation" grading to my CFG and worked through my rubric with them. I got wonderful feedback (mostly that my approach to participation was really great) and plan to incorporate a couple of the suggestions into my rubric next year!
2) The past couple of years I have been working really hard at improving my incorporation of technology. The WINGS program has helped this immensely! Whether it is having my students proofread each other's papers in Google Docs, posting a global problem for discussion on Wikispaces, or creating a film, we are using technology every day in my classes. I think I do it relatively well. I try my best to recognize the potentialities for problems and work within those constraints. Because I have been using different applications for so many years, I have learned to even anticipate the problems that will arise (lost passwords, etc.). Although my evaluations suggest that technology is somewhat of a distraction for the students, I find that technology enhances my classroom and does not distract from it enough to warrant NOT using it. In order to ensure it does not distract profoundly, we have classroom norms (clip it, flip it) and we take long moments to look one another in the eye and have heart to heart discussions (including our non-tech connections at the beginning of every class). I have used Google Docs more than I expected to and it has engendered endless "conversations" among students outside class.
3) I am still not assessing in the traditional manner and feel pretty darn good about it! The shift in preferred methologoy at the helm here has really helped! Most of the best research (Pink, McCain, Wagner, etc) is telling us that my approach works (which is not to say the more traditional approaches DON'T work!), so I feel somewhat supported in my unique approach.
4) Two years ago I revamped my entire US History curriculum to go back to the way I taught in college, thematically. I guess you could say that I found the courage to try and balance content in the AP classroom with creativity. The Theme Wrap Up papers ask students to write original, source-based essays that "wrap up" each theme. These papers and the debates within them then allow us as a class to think more critically about the content than if we were just memorizing. The theme approach allows for continual review as we go, so that it happens more organically. I have had mixed emotions about the theme approach and my test scores have gone down. But I still think that the approach allows for more measured consideration of content and substantive debate on critical issues in US History. Mostly, I have learned that the AP test is a crap shoot. Some years it's simple and students are well-prepared (one year I lucked out and the DBQ was on agricultural technology (one of my great loves and something my students think is INSANE to learn about) but last year the question was on freed African Americans from 1790-1820 -- as though there were any! ha!)! Some years the students are well-prepared but don't really take it seriously and do poorly. Other years students don't take it seriously, are brilliant, and do well anyway. If I can do my best to teach the content while being true to my pedagogical philosophy, then that is a good day's work!
My goals in the coming years are several:
1) I would like to work with the administration to really think about and hopefully reconceptualize the place of AP history courses at STG.
2) I would like to perfect my ability to use multi-media (especially film) in my projects.
3) I would like to figure out a way to better balance my belief that writing MUST be taught in quantity while maintaining my personal life and balance a bit more during the school year.
4) I would like to make the Diversity Club more vibrant (which may mean giving up JSA).
5) I still REALLY want to win a state tournament. After this past week, that is looking like a dimmer possibility. :~(
6) I would like to help create an evaluation system for STG faculty that is more meaningful than this current "system."
7) I would like to present at a professional conference on my Thematic approach to USH or my use of technology.
In conclusion, I have learned as much as I have taught in the past 3 years. My students inspire me to be thoughtful and kind. They lead me to rethink and revamp my approach on an annual (and sometimes a daily) basis. And I think I made had important impacts in my students lives. Geoff Kroska (Class of 2008) is using the research paper he wrote in APGOV as the basis for his honors thesis at the UofA. Nikki McNerney (Class of 2008) has decided to go into education and educational leadership because of her research into NCLB in APGOV. Alejandra Castaneda (Class of 2009) came back to say that she has an A in her English class because she can write 5 page papers fast thanks to the Theme Wrap Up Papers. Perhaps one of the most rewarding alum stories I have occurred just the other day. A student who transferred to Salpointe last year (Chase Gerwin) came back to ask me if I would write a letter of recommendation. He told me that my objective and compelling class is one of the great gifts in his life. He has been appalled at the politically skewed content he is getting at Salpointe and said that he learned from me that you can have your own ideas about things so long as you seek to understand the other side and so long as you understand that all stories and issues have multiple nuances and perspectives. If all of my students "get that" and walk away from my clases with elevated intellectual curiosity and a desire to keep learning, then I will count my work here as a success.