Professional Learning Goals

• Familiarizing ourselves with The HyperDoc Handbook: Digital Lesson Design Using Google Apps by Highfill, Hilton and Landis
• Creating personal definitions of how to successfully use a HyperDoc within our diverse classrooms
• Fostering collaborative discussion due to differing knowledge of new technologies
• Exploring how to create cross-strand math lessons and how to fit them within our current schedules
• Learning more about student-centred math

Activities and Resources

• We explored board-level professional development presentations through Google Slides and The HyperDoc Handbook: Digital Lesson Design Using Google Apps
• We discussed and tested what templates would best suit our future math lessons
• We created our first HyperDoc lesson about Carnaval to introduce our students to the online lesson format. It also allowed us to test different Google tools and games.
• We created two math HyperDoc lessons for grades 5 and 6
• To better communicate student math learning, we recognized that the EquatIO link needed to be added to G Suite to facilitate future lessons. We also explored the use of AnswerGarden and Flipgrid.
• To facilitate professional discussions and self-reflection, we created pre- and post-surveys to collect student interest data about their personal views about traditional versus online math class

Unexpected Challenges

The project begin later than expected because the team leader needed guidance as to where to deposit the initial funds. Our school needed access to the monies but we also needed to stay accountable and open another personal bank account. Additional challenges include waiting for receipts to pay for the supply teachers and also waiting until the last day to receive our technology. 

Enhancing Student Learning and Development

Students were able to see math outside of the classroom within more authentic contexts (e.g., building their own chocolate bar). They also extended their perception of math beyond paper and pencil tasks. Students were more engaged when they realized they had more autonomy in choosing activities and completing their inquiry at their own pace. We also enhanced student communication in French by using FlipGrid oral responses to push student thinking. Students were able to apply their knowledge in a variety of contexts (e.g., orally, online quotes, creating EquatIO math pages).

Sharing

• By the end of the school year, we hope to share our professional learning with the Junior divisions at both of our schools
• We may have the opportunity to present our project at a math-focused staff meeting
• There is a HyperDocs website entitled TeachersGiveTeachers where we can share our HyperDocs lessons with a larger online community and receive feedback
• We have shared our findings and hope to share future learning related to math and technology on our professional Twitter accounts (#tvdsbmath, #OTF)
• In the new school year there is a tech-focused conference (TVSDBSTEAM) where we can submit our application to share our learning with the rest of our school board

Project Evaluation

It took us until the the end of the project to ensure that everyone involved knew how to apply the concepts and use online tools for effective lesson delivery in math. We met our goals, with regards to creating cross-strand French HyperDocs for Junior grades, and became familiar with various tools, and new curriculum initiatives (spiralling math planning). We were very successful with regards to building teacher capacity through collaboration. We learned a great deal from each other and were able to use the release time to pursue areas of interest within our project’s scope.