Special Announcement - Poster Unveiling TOMORROW!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Testing is under way and Socratic Seminars are nearly finished. As an update on an item from last week, I am allowing students to select which quarter their seminar grades and ticket assignments will count towards.

Just a reminder for all of you who can make it out, we will have the poster unveiling at the Charles and Renate Frydman Educational Resource Center at Wright State University from 5-6PM tomorrow evening, March 18th (Wednesday). There is a Facebook Event that the ERC created where you can find the details and information about their location on Wright State's campus. Here is their webpage. I'd encourage you to get there early to be sure you have time to park. Guest parking information can be found here. You can park there or get a pass to park in another lot, but please leave enough time to get there.

There will be snacks and you'll have a chance to meet the artists! I am also offering extra credit (on 3rd or 4th quarter) for students who show up.

Please remember their artwork will be available for purchase after the display is taken down (April 15th), so if you'd like to purchase theirs or others' posters, the suggested donation amount is $10, but we will gladly take more! If students raise $1,000 or more, I will let them shave my beard (or dye it) as I promised. The silent auction will end at 5:50.

We hope you can make it out, and we will also take donations that evening. Checks should be made payable to the Dayton Regional STEM School and write "Donation for Genocide Posters" in the memo line.

Have a great week,

~Mr. Grieve

Week Twenty-Nine

This Week

It's been a good week this week as we have finished up our studies of Globalization and started our Socratic Seminars. As a class, we looked at NAFTA (which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year), discussed the concept of "Glocalization" (yes, with a 'c') by watching McDonald's commercials, and looked at how emerging epidemics like Ebola intersect with Globalization in the real world. Finally, on Friday, we began our Socratic Seminars. Students are doing a great job so far and their discussions have been thoughtful, well-informed, and very reasoned.

Students in our first Socratic Seminar of 2015

Upcoming Week

These seminars will continue into next week during OGTs (taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday). I am polling students to see whether they think it fair to include these Seminar grades on their 3rd quarter grade (since some of them are taking place during 4th quarter). On the one hand, all of the preparation took place during 3rd and putting them on 3rd quarter will give students a better idea of where they stand. On the other, the fact remains that some will take place during 4th quarter. Whatever is decided, fairness to the students will be the deciding factor. If you have any issues with the decision made after talking with students today, please feel free to reach out to me to discuss.

Of course next week is OGT week. Students are encouraged to practice this weekend for the OGTs using the following test preparation website. Additionally, students can find out the topics for the Social Studies test HERE. While students have not yet had all of the classes covered by the OGTs, I am confident that the students will do well on this test. As a benchmark, in previous years, 93% is the lowest passing rate DRSS has had for students taking the social studies OGT test.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me at arch.grieve@wright.edu.

Oh, and Happy St. Patrick's Day next week! In celebration, please enjoy this beautiful picture of the "Three Sisters" on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry from 2010 when my wife and I visited the country.

I just love the picture...

Have a great weekend,

~Mr. Grieve

Week Twenty-Eight

This Week

It's been a rare week of being in school all week, even though some schools closed yesterday! This week we focused on continuing our study of Globalization. Students were given a combination of readings and videos (even some cartoons) and took part in group discussions as we continued to grapple with our essential questions. I've been tracking the assignments on a Google Doc, which you can find here.

Today students also are taking their first geography quiz (first one in a while) over Asia. Hopefully they haven't lost this skill set!

Today is also National Bring Your Action Figure to Work Day.

I brought Batman...

 

 Upcoming Week

It's hard to believe that 3rd quarter ends next Friday. Students will be finishing up our Globalization unit and wrapping up the quarter, which means the following:

• Students must be sure they check to see that their posters have been received (they've been given detailed instructions on how to do this)
• Ms. Reid and I will grade posters next week and this will be added as a project grade in ProgressBook
• Once I receive grades from Ms. Reid I will input her grades into ProgressBook for the students' letters and we will mail them to their Members of Congress
• Students should study for the OGTs by taking the practice tests, found here
• Students must revise their portfolio reflections for World History by next Wednesday at 3:15 in order to revise their portfolios and receive a grade for that in my class - the directions were written on my board Thursday and I took a picture of them: 

How to revise portfolio reflections

I think that about wraps it up! Have a great weekend, and please remember that your students' work will be unveiled and displayed at the Wright State Educational Resource Center on Wednesday, March 18, from 5-6PM. Hope you can make it out!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Twenty-Seven

This Week

This has been a chaotic week thanks to weather and PARCC testing, which made it impossible for us to get online during the end of the week. The good news, hopefully, is that we're back on!

Students, don't forget that your portfolio reflections are still due tonight (no later than midnight)! You were given plenty of class time and Plan E time last week and this week (before Internet went out) to complete this. Again, please use my portfolio as a template for yours. It can be found here. This must be submitted to this spreadsheet (click right here) no later than midnight tonight, and if you have not checked the link to be sure it works (i.e. takes me directly to your world history portfolio reflection page), it will be counted late, a point I've made repeatedly in class. I am concerned because as of 1:53PM, only 54 students out of 90 have done this.

In terms of content, though, this week we finished up our Conflict and Genocide unit (almost - still need to mail out our letters) and began our unit on Globalization. This unit is one I've done every year, but this year is different in that our focus will be not just on globalization, but on how globalization impacts and is impacted by emerging epidemics.

The students are attempting to answer four essential questions throughout the unit: What is the nature of globalization? Does it have a net positive or negative impact? What factors have led to increased globalization? and What can we do to reduce the negative externalities caused by globalization? They will discuss these questions during the seminars in a few weeks.

To begin looking at globalization, we looked at a short documentary by NPR that traces the journey of a t-shirt from Cotton fields in Mississippi to the backs of NPR listeners, which was really interesting. You can watch the short documentary at home using this link, and students were encouraged to revisit it later to use facts/details as notes for their Socratic Seminars and, later in the year, for their debates.

As an illustration of how globalization works, students did an activity mapping out where their clothes and personal devices and belongings are made... this is mine (the beard refers to beard oil I use, which is made in the USA)

Upcoming Week

Next week we will continue our study of globalization. Students are reminded to keep track of their assignments throughout this unit, as this is the only unit in which assignments are not collected after students complete them, but at the end of the unit. The assessment comes in their demonstration of understanding of the material during the Socratic Seminars. Students can keep track of the assignments using the assignment tracker for this unit, which I'll do my best to keep updated as we go along. So far they've only had one assignment, the Comparative Advantage activity worksheet.

Have a great weekend!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Twenty-Six!

This Week

Calling this a "week" is being a bit generous. Students came in for a total of two days between President's day and our first ever true snow day here at DRSS! It's been a brutal winter so far. Hopefully everyone stays warm and has a nice snow day today.

Not much to report except that students continued working on their posters with the little amount of time we had this week. On Thursday's Plan E I asked them to start working on their portfolio reflections. Friday we were going to have a guest speaker, but she will (hopefully) be coming back in the next few weeks at some point to talk to students about our next unit - globalization (and diseases). Below are a few images of students at various stages of the poster-making process.

George works on inking his poster

Students working on gauching... a new part of the project this year that I've never done before. Posters should look even better than in the past!

Angie and Jake inking their images

Alyssa working hard on carving her linoleum block... looking forward to see this poster when it's inked!

Upcoming Week

Assuming next week's weather is better, we'll finish up our posters on Monday and then move on to beginning our unit on Globalization, which is our integrated unit this year. We're integrating it with emerging epidemics, so towards the end of this unit we'll explore how increased globalization has played a role in the spread of diseases like Ebola. It should be timely and interesting! Our geography quizzes will finally make a comeback next week two as we begin looking at countries in Asia. If you want to get a head start, you can practice here.

Lastly, if students really want to do something educational on this snow day (which I doubt, but there may be a few of them), check out this link from ODE where you will be able to create an account in order to practice for all OGT tests using previous test questions.

Have a great weekend, and see you next Monday!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Twenty Five - JCOWA/Posters/Chinese

This Week

This has been a really exciting (albeit FAST) week! On Monday I took many of our 10th graders to the University of Dayton where students competed in the annual Quiz Bowl competition. Long story short - we won first place for the second year in a row! On top of our successes, we also had a great time.

Mr. Lydy, Tyler, Vidur, Tess, and David will be representing Dayton in DC this year! Check out the JCOWA FB page here.

Some of our newest JCOWA members at their first Quiz Bowl. Check out more pictures on our FB page.

That was just on Monday though. We also worked on posters all week (and will be working into the next one as well). Below are some highlights from the poster process.

Linoleum block carving - safety first!

Inking the posters

As if working on posters wasn't enough, we also had a really fun field trip to Wright State for the Chinese Immersion day. I love chaperoning on this trip each year, it's always a lot of fun!

See? Told you so.

The DEP 2 students performed for other area schools as well, nice work everyone!

We had a big group this year! Find more pictures on our FB page.

Upcoming Week

Next week we will be finishing up posters and starting on our next unit: Globalization. On Friday we will have a special guest speaker come and talk to the students about how Globalization and Emerging Epidemics (which is both a topic that students are studying in their other classes and the title of a book they'll be reading in Language Arts) interact and shape the world in which we live. This is a particularly timely topic with everything that's gone on in the news in recent months about Ebola. In this unit students will explore what globalization is (both from an economic, societal, and cultural standpoint) and how it has happened, debate whether it's good or bad, and try to grapple with what can be done to reduce the negative externalities caused by globaliztion. It should be an enlightening unit for all of us, especially since this is the first time I've taught this as part of an integrated unit on diseases!

Lastly, we've confirmed a date/location/time for our poster exhibition! Students will be unveiling their posters at Wright State University's Educational Resource Center on March 18th at 5PM. They will be auctioning off work to raise money for international aid organizations in order to help those living through conflict zones around the world today. Please put this event on your calendars now!

Have a great weekend.

~Mr. Grieve

Week Twenty-Four - Letters/Posters

This Week

This week was a short one! With a Plan E today and no school tomorrow, it's a wonder we got so much done. Students focused this week on revising their letters and refining their poster concepts. Ms. Reid planned an awesome critique for the students and some of our classes on Tuesday were combined so that students could work on posters and receive critique from their peers. The ideas are crystallizing now, and I'm happy to be able to share a few more (concrete) steps in the process from this week's critique:

Joel getting critiques on his poster idea from fellow students

Noah presenting his poster idea for critique

Upcoming Week

JCOWA Quiz Bowl is this upcoming Monday. I will have a substitute on Monday and our students will be at the University of Dayton competing (and hopefully winning again)! I want to go back to Washington DC again! For the rest of the week we will hopefully finish up our posters and letter revisions and (hopefully) send them to our US Representatives in the next week or two.

Obviously state testing is in the news a lot recently. While I'm glad to teach at a school that doesn't "teach to the test," I definitely understand the desire to want to prepare for it, especially since some of the topics are things that they will not have studied yet. The best way I've found to do this is to encourage students to take the online practice tests that the Ohio Department of Education puts out for students. If you go to this link from ODE you will be able to create an account in order to practice for all OGT tests using previous test questions. Or, you can simply click "Take a Test Without Logging In" and jump right into practice mode. The nice thing about the site is that it will tell you immediately what you got right/wrong, and why.

I'd recommend to students that they take all of the practice tests at least once, then focus practicing for the ones in which they're deficient. The answers are essentially just shuffled each year, so you can expect to see many of the same ones on the actual tests, which will take place starting on Tuesday, March 17th (Happy St. Patrick's Day!)

Lastly, one of the students (Marilyn) asked if they could dye my beard instead of shaving it if $1,000 is raised. I am also OK with this. In order to inspire the students, I have (poorly) photoshopped an image of myself to give a basic idea of what this could look like. I should note that my least favorite colors are purple and teal.

Is it?

We will likely have an unveiling event at the Wright State Educational Resource Center in the coming month or two, so be on the lookout for a date from me soon.

Have a great weekend!

~Mr. Grieve