But I thought BINGO was going to save me?!

You're thinking of Lassie.

Students are slowly but surely (mostly slowly) internalizing another new understanding of our Studio D process this week: Even BINGOs have rules.

The first rule of BINGO is: You do not talk about BINGO. 
Wait. What?! How are you possibly going to make this analogy work, Mrs. A?!
As in, actions speak louder than words. Don't talk about it, be about it.

The second rule of BINGO is: You DO NOT talk about BINGO! 
Talk is cheap.

Third rule of BINGO: Someone yells "stop," goes limp, taps out, the fight is [NOT] over. 
It may seem we are pushing you off the ledge at times, but you have to trust us to hand you the parachute first! If you have trouble correcting your errors or making the grade, ask a teacher to help you - it doesn't make the BINGO go away, and the teacher might help you by reminding you to check your notes instead of just telling you the answer, but if you continue to take appropriate action, you will eventually succeed.

Forth rule: Only two guys to a fight.
This is just you against the work. Teachers are going to show you how to find answers, not give them to you. This may be frustrating at first, but it is better for you in the long run. Along these same lines, copying someone else's A+ work, or asking them to fix yours, is not the same as BINGOing your own. By all means, seek help when needed, from peers, parents, teachers - but be careful that you are learning to correct your own mistakes, not waiting for your neighbor to hand you the answer.

Fifth rule: One fight at a time, fellas.
BINGOs have this tendency of accumulating. Studio D work can seem overwhelming because if you are redoing everything all the time and then the teachers keep giving me more work but I still have to finish that old work, and now I have so much work... This is where organization, time management, and attention to detail come in. Keeping a calendar of all deadlines and schedules, organizing your free time and incorporating "homework chunks," and paying close attention to all directions while working slowly so as not to make careless errors are all strategies I recommend. Too often a student has to BINGO work because of a format error. The more carefully you attend to your work the first time you turn it in, the more likely you are to  be successful and not need the BINGO.

Sixth rule: No shirt, no shoes. 
No work, no BINGO. You can't redo something you never did in the first place. If your work is not complete and on time the first time, you can't BINGO it. Period. BINGO can't save you if you do nothing.

Seventh rule: Fights will go on as long as they have to. 
If you are actively working through the BINGO process, and I can see that you are trying to improve your work, that you are considering feedback to improve, and you resubmit assignments as early and often as possible, I don't care if it takes you 27 BINGOs - you WILL be successful and I will see to it! But if you tap out, if you stop and give up, if you take a 3 week hiatus and mentally check out, BINGOs will reach a limit and you might be stuck with a crummy grade after all. The design process does have deadlines, and therefore so do BINGOs - it's up to you to submit as many redos as you can within the windows of time given to you.

And the eighth and final rule: If this is your first time in Studio D, you have to fight.
You asked to be here. Don't flake out on me now. It's early, and we promised you REAL work for REAL people. We promised you collaboration and leadership potential and hands-on learning. I've done this before, so I know I can and will deliver on these promises. But you aren't sure yet. You're starting to think this is more work than you thought it would be - this is too much work. They really think I'm going to write that thing AGAIN?! Yes, I do, and you may not believe me now, but you will be better for it! That's how you get REAL work done. You do it FOR REAL.

Stick with it, D9. You will do great things this year! <3 Mrs. A

Winners Never Quit

By Barbara Soblo 

     Well, the honeymoon period is definitely over. The new clothes and supplies aren’t so new, the novelty of high school is becoming routine, and Studio D 9 is ramping up the expectations! Part of what makes our program so innovative and out of the box, is our focus on quality work over quantity. Doing multiple drafts is the norm in our class. But getting students to dig deep to create that quality requires a very different classroom vibe.

     Students know quality when they see it and when they produce it. The scary part for a teacher is that getting to quality can take a lot of time! Our first mini design challenge (what will your one sentence legacy be?) finally got to the Go! stage on Friday. For two weeks, students have designed a single sentence that captures who they are; a sentence that goes deep into their core and really captures their complexities using imagery, metaphor and words that carry multiple meanings. Friday they submitted their final work for grading; our job is now to print & post them before open house Thursday.

     In the Gather stage, students listed adjectives about themselves; don’t select words that describe what you do, but describe who you are. During the Glean stage, students boiled their list down to essentials elements. In the Generate and Gauge stages, students wrote their sentence and through several feedback sessions, the sentences changed into something wall worthy. Both teachers & students focused the critique on three things: word choice, flow, and pizazz. Students presented orally both in small groups & to the entire class. I got goosebumps when a sentence really hit the mark. But them react to the quality created by their peers really blew me away. These kids were mostly strangers some 15 days ago, and they were baring their souls to each other & asking for feedback.  

     The assignment is so simple- write a sentence about you- but in Studio D we don’t do simple. Here we begin embracing the ideals we’ll build on all year. That here we support & push each other in order to create something we can all be proud to put out in the community. That feedback must be given & received in the spirit of striving to make the work better. It’s exciting to be watch their brains switch on as they begin to understand more about Studio D and what we do.

     But the work has only just begun because our first big design challenge starts on Monday.

MAP Reading Test Results

What is MAP?

According to the Northwest Evaluation Association website (http://www.nwea.org), MAP (which stands for Measures of Academic Progress) is a “computerized adaptive assessment [...] aligned to national and state curricula and standards [which provides] detailed, actionable data about where each child is on their unique learning path.” The MAP assessment “adapts to a student’s responses as they take the test.” If a student answers a question correctly, the test presents a more challenging item, whereas if a student misses a question, the test presents a simpler item.

How is MAP scored?

Again, from their website, “Every test item on a MAP assessment corresponds to a value on the RIT Scale (for Rasch Unit), so educators gain a deep understanding of what a student knows. RIT assigns a value of difficulty to each item, and with an equal interval measurement, so the difference between scores is the same regardless of whether a student is at the top, bottom, or middle of the scale. RIT measures understanding regardless of grade level, so the information helps to track a student’s progress from year to year.” 

Essentially students receive an average RIT score upon completion of the test. This number is used to determine how close to grade level that student is working in that particular content area. For example, an average 9th grade student testing for reading in the spring is expected to earn a RIT score of 224. (A score of 220 would indicate that student is working at an average 8th grade level, whereas a score of 227 would indicate that student is working at an average 10th grade level.) The differences between grade level average scores is not always uniform or intuitive; to interpret any particular RIT score, one should consult the RIT reference charts available on the NWEA website.

The “D” is for Design, Not Standardized… Putting it into Perspective

One of the primary tenets of Studio D is that standardized tests, like MAP, do not provide a complete account of any student’s knowledge or growth. We prefer to emphasize real life experiences, collaboration, real world problem solving, and critical thinking. That being said, we also acknowledge that standardized tests, like MAP, are currently necessary in the field of education and do hold some value. While they may not provide a full picture of student’s real world skills, they can provide certain measures of achievement and valuable data related to specific skill sets and growth. No two students are the same, and Studio D strives to provide an education that recognizes this. On the other hand, standardized tests are standardized in order to assist educators in comparing student achievement levels across diverse populations and in evaluating the effectiveness of their methods.

So do we believe standardized tests, like MAP, can be valuable tools? Yes.

Do we believe in analyzing the data they provide us? Yes.

Do we believe that performance on a standardized test can tell us everything (or even most) of what we want to know about our students’ growth and achievement? Absolutely not.

Do we believe in evaluating our teaching methods regularly to achieve maximum impact on student learning and growth? Absolutely, yes (That’s how we ended up with Studio D)!

All that being said, here are the results of this year’s MAP testing.

49 Studio D freshmen took the MAP reading test in the fall as new freshmen, and again today.

• 24% of these Studio D freshmen (12 students) scored below grade level in the fall.
• 75% (9 of these 12 students) improved their score from the fall. 
• 73% of Studio D freshmen scored at or above grade level today.
• 10% of Studio D freshmen (5 students) maintained their score from the fall. 
• 80% of those students who maintained their score from the fall (i.e., 4 of the 5) are continuing to score above grade level. 
• 69% of Studio D freshmen improved their score from the fall. 
• The average rate of increase of those who improved their score from the fall was 3.6 points. (On-grade-level freshmen are expected to increase their fall to spring scores by 2 points). 
• 14% of Studio D freshmen (7 students) scored just slightly below grade level today (i.e., late 8th grade level, or beginning 9th grade level)
• 5 of these 7 students maintained or improved their score from the fall. 
• 12% of Studio D freshmen (6 students) scored significantly below grade level today. 
• 4 of these 6 students improved their score from the fall.

Show-Feel-Do Maps

Students' storyboards and scripts are in full revision mode this week. Students created some great scripts with powerful examples of human rights violations and what their peers and community can do to help.

Some students at the beginning of the week were struggling to find their focus. They knew what information they wanted to include, but weren't sure how to make that information into a documentary.

I had done an organization activity with a few groups where we began with what we wanted our audience to do, what we needed them to feel in order to act, and what we needed to show them in order for them to feel that emotion. In short, I'm calling them Show-Feel-Do maps. It helped students to make a logical order and organization of what they wanted to achieve and how they needed to go about achieving it.


                  


Students had to first answer the question, "What do you want your audience to do?" Most of what they came up with was a Call to Action or Response. They wanted their audience to do something after seeing their documentary: volunteer, donate, speak up, spread awareness, etc. So knowing they wanted to elicit a certain response, we talked about the fact that certain emotions elicit responses more quickly than others. People respond to guilt, happiness, anger, and sadness and can be moved to action if that emotion is rooted deeply enough. We then had the talk about what information would evoke what emotional response. How do people respond to children suffering? How do people respond to pictures of domestic violence victims? Students had to carefully consider not only how they were portraying information to get that emotional response, but to use that power carefully. Empathy for the people and groups they were representing was first on their mind as they decided what to show.

For some groups, this just helped to solidify the direction of their film. For others, this changed their whole approach.

As of Friday, half of our groups had begun filming and editing in iMovie. The other half are split: one quarter is ready to film as of Monday, the other quarter is still revising their scripts for approval.

Revisions, Revisions

So for the past two day students have been working diligently (for the most part) on their storyboards, scripts, and B-roll for their documentaries. Groups turned these in yesterday for feedback. Coach K went through them individually. For the most part they weren't bad. There was a lot left to be desired in terms of detail.

Students were told that when they created their storyboards that three pieces of information were critical to getting a complete vision before filming. Students had to include Dialogue, Action, and FX. The major problems with storyboards that were turned in were a lack of detail. Students would say something like "Speaker will talk about violations of our right." That doesn't tell me EXACTLY what will be said. Before anyone will be given a camera to film we have to know EXACTLY what will be filmed, including what will be said WORD FOR WORD.

For the most part, students did well on the action and timing of each scene and shot, but please keep in mind that shot and scene times may change when you actually have a camera in hand.

If you are still struggling with storyboarding check out this video for some examples of clarification.





Here are some examples of films under 5 minutes. They are not all documentaries, but at least you can see what a short film looks like.









Do Not Forget:
-Final drafts of storyboards, scripts, and b-roll are all due Friday. You have today and tomorrow to revise.
-Children's Book Revision due Friday
     *Must include 3 critiques and must have begun final product
     *Final Final Product due 3/28
-Mr. Mayes' Middle East Project is due tomorrow!

Critiques and BINGOs

Students' rough drafts of their Middle Eastern Culture mini-project were due to Mr. Mayes yesterday. He was able to look over them and today students were able to critique their classmates' work.

Students collaborated on a list of qualities that, aside from the required content, a quality final product would need to have. This is the list they came up with:

• Clear Organization
• Labels of Parts
• Bullet points of important information
• Skimmable
• Title
• Visually Appealing
• Neat
• Colorful
• Font Consistency
• Visuals Incorporated
• Captions
• History as well as modern culture
• Grammar/Punctuation/Capitalization
• Interesting
• Relevant
• Personal
• Points of Interest 

Students were then given 4 minutes to exchange their rough draft with another group. The first two minutes were spent silently critiquing the other group's project based on the criteria above. The second two minutes were split between the groups; each group had one minute to get clarification on any questions or to give their suggestions. This allowed students to both give and receive feedback on their work.

         

        

 

           

After four rounds of feedback students were put back in their groups and began to sort through the feedback they were given. They began revisions based on their classmates feedback and will continue those revisions later this week. The final product is due Friday, March 21st but students will have a chance to conference with Mr. Mayes early next week. 

With Mrs. Auspelmyer, students reviewed how to write quote analysis and were given a second assignment to practice their skills. Those students who are still having difficulty with quote analysis formed a small group with Mrs. A talked  about their weaknesses and the feedback they had received. Students who had previously BINGO'ed their first quote analysis were given the opportunity to BINGO that assignment again. Students were also given a second set of quotes to continue practicing their close reading skills. The second set of quotes will be due Monday and that assignment information is here.