Student Designed Learning Experiences

This post is a reflection on a recent activity where my students created HyperDocs. My goal in this post is to share both the experience and resources connected to the activity. If there is something here that can be adapted and used, feel free to copy and modify anything shared here. 

I've been using HyperDocs as one way to engage students for several years in my AP Environmental Science Courses. It is not always perfect, but I enjoy the experience of creating and revising interactive student-centered learning experiences for all of my students.

The Problem I have to admit that I've struggled a bit this year getting my learners to take ownership of their own learning experiences. Most years students generally fit into 1 of 3 categories when I start to make the shift from teacher-led to student-centered experiences. 

• Category 1: Not Me!
  I get to choose what to do? I'm not doing much then.
• Category 2: This is Great!
  I get to choose what to do? I love that I have a choice in how I engage in the content.
• Category 3: Tell Me!
  I have to choose what to do? I don't learn this way, can't you just tell us what we need to know? 

Normally after a few weeks, most of my learners to take ownership, learn to enjoy the process, and engage fully in our student-centered learning experiences.  This year I have more students who prefer to do nothing or who would prefer that I lecture daily. 

Revising how I teach is what I do, so I am always exploring a variety of different strategies to engage students. I get bored if I am always doing the same old stuff. This year it has been a struggle for me to find ways to engage some of my students in the HyperDocs I've created and shared. I've enjoyed the struggle, but it has been harder on me than I would have thought. I am adjusting, but getting everyone to engage consistently has been elusive.

The Activity
My PLN has always been there to help me explore new strategies and tools to support learning.  My PLN has come to my rescue once again. A recent post in the HyperDocs Facebook Group inspired me to try something new that I think worked very well to engage almost all of my students. After reading this Facebook I decided to have my students design HyperDocs that they would share with other students. 

The stated goal was to engage my students in exploring the Consequences of Climate Change by creating learning resources for other students, but my ulterior motive was to see if my students had some ideas and methods to engage all learners that I've yet to discover. My students partnered up after I introduced the topic and we had 3 days (45 mn periods) to create interactive learning experiences. My students have created quizzes, presentations, and all types of graphics, but this was the first student-centered lesson I've ever asked them to create.

Student HyperDoc Creation - Climate Change Consequences

I decided to sell this activity as a competition and I hooked the students with the idea of doing it better than me. I introduced the project with a promo for "Beat Bobby Flay" and we were off and running.

I also built my own HyperDoc connected to the same content as the students were building their versions. I decided to use Google Slides and Pear Deck to create my entry.

Student-Paced Pear Deck - The Consequences of Climate Change (Teacher Created)

If you like to make a copy of this HyperDoc Pear Deck Slide Deck, click here.

In the end, we didn't evaluate these in a competitive way, but we all had some fun talking smack about how much better our creations would be. I created this form for the students to evaluate each other's work. If you would like a copy of this rubric that you can use/modify, click here. 

The Results
The students were very engaged in the creation, design, and the completion of the HyperDocs. Most partners worked bell to bell and still needed to spend some time at home perfecting their creations. I listened to some great conversations within the groups and the verbal feedback they shared with each other was excellent. Here are some samples that stood out from the 30 HyperDocs created by my students. 

• Student Sample 1
• Student Sample 2
• Student Sample 3
• Student Sample 4
• Student Sample 5

Here are some of my takeaways from the process and the completion of this activity.

• Many of my students used the same tools and techniques to engage each other in collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity. 
• I would have liked to see the students approach creating the HyperDocs more from their perspectives. I think many of them were trying to match what I have been doing without truly thinking if there is a better way. 
• Many of the students focused more on the content, so quite a few of the HyperDocs were more little more than Docs with links. The content is important, but I still want them to understand that there is more to learning than memorization of facts. 
• Students love the idea of having both a video and written resources for each section or concept. They want to have the choice to watch the video or read through a website whenever possible. I need to do a better job of providing and emphasizing choice in my HyperDocs.
• Critical thinking questions are something we need to work on. Many of the HyperDocs only asked basic knowledge level questions connected to a video or link. The students like this because "the answers are more clear", but they are not asked to explore deeper in most of the HyperDocs
• Many of the groups focussed on the first resource they found in a YouTube or a Google search even if it might not have been the best. We need to work on evaluating resources for learning.  Only a few groups provided additional resources for curious exploration. 
• The average score of the student evaluations of each other's HyperDocs was a 46/52. This was a bit higher than my evaluation and I don't know if the students were trying to be nice, or if these scores truly reflect what the experienced. I need to spend some more time connecting the low and high scores to the activities in the respective HyperDocs to figure this out.
• They want to draw more both digitally and on paper when working through a HyperDoc. I need to remember to add in some additional sketchnote suggestions to future HyperDocs. 
• They want more "notes" in the HyperDocs that they can connect to the activity directly. I've always told them to connect the activities to our assigned readings, but I need to remember that they don't always do the readings in a timely manner. 
• I need to narrow the focus on some of my HyperDocs. I am going to look at breaking down some of my larger HyperDocs into smaller pieces.

Overall I enjoyed the experience and I think that I will do something similar with an even smaller focus in the future. I may also have my students create activities for each other connected to our exploration in some of my existing HyperDocs.

If you have questions or comments, please let me know.