Each of the authors provided ideas in their writing that I have considered as I think of my next steps and my driving question. Baggio’s way of communicating information has been the most effective and relevant to me. The content in each chapter keeps me engaged and thinking about how this applies to my students and my driving question, as well as to my own learning. The power of visuals when it comes to learning is continuously highlighted by Baggio and this is something important when it comes to learning. As she mentions, visuals activate both the affective and cognitive domains of the mind. I am now asking myself how my driving question “What impact do student-created media lessons have on student engagement in the classroom?” relates to this topic and how I can modify my question and process design in a more effective way.
Clark provides some input on my previous question, as she focuses on structuring a lesson design effectively. This process will come handy as I am attempting to wrap my mind around how my question is evolving and what the best way to move on from here will be. Application and practice time during instruction seems to be key from what I gather Clark explains in the lesson design. Dervin’s key idea that resonated with me was the need to identify who my audience is and how I can best bridge their learning gap so that they will successfully cross and learn the content, benefit, instead of simply using my prefered instruction method. All three texts lead to the importance of paying attention to the user (student) and how we can best help that user. knowing how people respond to specific aspects that can be incorporated in lessons, more specifically visuals, makes me question how I should more on from here with my question. I still need a little more clarity on how I need to change my question. My driving question does include the creation of such visuals but teaching, and more importantly, designing the way students learn doing this is what I need to spend more time on.
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Knowing the significance of digital literacy for students, it's important to think of how I can expose my students to the skills they need to interact with information online properly. I can't expect my students to have these skill but exposure in our daily routine might make a difference. Part of the common sense media description of digital literacy is the ability to effectively find, identify, evaluate, and use information. When students go online, it is important for them to recognize their role and understand how to find and use information correctly. These are critical thinking skills that will serve them both online and in offline interactions. It can sometimes be difficult to put time aside for lessons focusing on digital literacy alone, but there are things that I can do to integrate it in what I’m doing in the classroom to give students more exposure and practice digital-literacy skills. Some things can be done at school and others can be shared at home to continue student application of skills. Common sense media offers many ideas for students to learn both at home and at school. Using google classroom, I plan to have students experience some of these resources on their own independent time through google classroom assignments. Through their google assignments and comments I plan to have students practice respecting each other’s ideas and opinions by noticing that what they comment and contribute in the google classroom has an effect on their peers. I also plan on posting different resources they can work on independently. Google classroom is also a powerful communication tool that parents can have access to. I want to explore how I can share resources and give parents access to our classroom so they can continue to help their child with digital literacy. The fact that their parents are able to see their comments might also make them understand that there are always people that can see their online presence, even when they think it’s not public to others. Sketchpad 4.0Sketchpad 4.0 is a free online drawing application that offers complete access to many drawing tools. There’s no need for downloads and it allows students to show their creativity for many different purposes. It’s better used with a drawing pad. I found this tool last year while I was looking for a site to use drawing pads I had acquired for my students to create e-books. You are able to use the site without the drawing pads, but the experience with a drawing pad and pen is much better than just using the computer mouse or touchpad. There is a bit of initial exploration to get used to all the tools and options it offers. I am not an expert but am able to create and save files in pdf. and other formats. It takes students a few sessions to get used to the basic tools, it is a bit time consuming at first but I feel it is a powerful tool for those students that find their interest in illustration. The best part about this tool is that it offers students a chance to show their work in a different way, typing and illustrating their writing is only one option. It’s not for everyone though, some students will get lost in the number of options and waste time, so it depends on your students. I have also used this site along with the drawing pad to project problems on the whiteboard as I am able to draw and do things you would be able to do with a smartboard. There are many other creative ways to use it in the classroom. As I write this, I realize it would be perfect for Khan Academy style videos explaining math problems for my students. I can see using a screen recorder to record how to solve problems and then posting them on google classroom. If you are looking for a tool that allows you to draw online without any downloads necessary, I would give this a try. Sketchpad 4.0 https://sketch.io/sketchpad-v4.0/ A TEACHER: INNOVATIVE LEARNING JOURNEY_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Starting my fourth year as a teacher here in Napa, I decided to join my fourth grade team and embark on a new journey. This Innovative Learning program has tested what I thought I knew and what I believed I was doing well. I feel that my first couple of years teaching were filled with energy and the desire to try new things, over time, this started to slow and I began to feel like creativity diminished as I adapted to what I had to do in order to meet time constraints. I have learned and considered many new approaches to teaching and through research and content covered in class, I have been able to question what it is I need to do in order to be successful in teaching my students and continuing my own growth. I believe student learning starts with a teacher that is excited about what he or she is doing. In order to spark curiosity in learning for my students, I must be able to successfully utilize effective tools and strategies myself and understand that the way I learn is not the only way for my students to learn. I need to make sense of how I can best approach different scenarios in the classroom, and in order to do that I am tapping into research and practices that will allow me to expand my thinking. Technology offers many advantages that I am still exploring but I have also been exposed to and continue to learn from other areas in our sessions. In the sessions we have had so far I have learned about research on the human brain and body, and how different life choices influence the way we think and feel. What we eat and how we engage in daily activities has a big effect on how we think and how our day goes. Being able to identify the effects that my choices will have on my life is a powerful interest that continues to grow and I hope I will be able to guide my students to this same interest in becoming a better learner and individual. In this program I have been involved in a process of struggles that have allowed me to analyze what works for me and understand what my strengths and weaknesses are. At the same time I have started to be more aware of how I can improve those areas that need growth. Exploring new ideas and learning from them, knowing what works for me, and practicing effective habits that will further my growth, are a few of the things that have resonated in the months I have been involved in this program. As a teacher, I want to continue this growth and interest in new creative forms so that I may teach more effectively and motivate my students in engaging with what works for them. MY EXPERIENCE WITH DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP Having digital access at our school gives me the opportunity to provide different experiences to students while in the classroom. Even if they don’t have the same access at home, they are still exposed to the same issues as they grow up in a digital world. As I explored different resources, I was thinking about the things I already do in the classroom that apply to the eight topics of digital citizenship presented in the Common Sense training. As I explored and looked at the different approaches of presenting these topics, I realized that most of the topics I felt I was covering in class were only briefly presented to students. I don’t feel like I have provided as many opportunities for them to experience, make personal connections, and have those conversations about digital citizenship. For that reason, I want to continue looking into different ways that I can provide those opportunities for my students. One of the topics that I feel I have focused on in my classroom is Relationships & Communication. Students have been working on online writing and commenting on other students’ writing projects through the Seesaw platform. I tried to have students experience the power of their comments through this platform, allowing them the freedom to communicate and give feedback to each other. Not many issues came up since I controlled the posting approval at first, but we did have discussions about professionalism in their comments. Overall, I feel that a stronger foundation on all of the eight topics would allow for students to become more educated digital citizens and produce better results both in the real and digital world. Although we do have a technology teacher at our school that provides students with experiences and opportunities to practice digital citizenship, my next steps to continue making digital citizenship personal for my students in the classroom is to implement some of the strategies found in the resources we’ve explored. Many of these could be implemented in lessons we are already working on. MAKING LEARNING DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP PERSONAL FOR STUDENTS One example of something I want to do in the classroom to make learning about digital citizenship personal to students are the stand up surveys from the video in the common sense training. The teacher in that video asked questions that allowed students to bring their personal life into the lesson. I thought providing different scenarios for students would be a powerful transition when trying to share information with students before they get online and start researching or commenting on their peers’ work. Another thing I might do in the classroom to make digital citizenship personal is to have students create their own scenarios through comics. In one of the video lessons I explored, the teacher engages students in an activity where they not only practiced writing and story planning, but they could also apply their own experiences of what a good digital citizen should do as they created a superhero. These kind of activities allow for student creativity and also allow them to connect their own personal experiences, not to mention an outlet through art that allows students to communicate their ideas and feelings with others. One last example of how I can make learning digital citizenship personal for my students, is the use of the online civic reasoning resources found in the Stanford History Education Group. With the amount of resources that students are exposed to online, it is essential for them to be able to identify what is credible and what might be biased. These resources allow students to assess different sources and analyze them using assessments tools. These are strategies that would allow my students to assess what information to use now that we are starting research projects. It’s important that students understand how to identify and make good judgement when searching online. As mentioned in the parent outreach section of the common sense training, at a certain age, students believe that the first thing that pops up on a search bar is the most credible or best source. That is why it is important to give students tools to identify and be able to think critically when looking at online resources on any online site. This is one of the strategies I want to apply next in my classroom, assessing and being able to reason and think critically about what they are reading. As it was mentioned in the Common Sense training, giving students the exposure and opportunity to practice being good digital citizens at an early age is important so that they may experience and understand what it is to be part of the online world. These resources are great to begin in the classroom and share for home use as well. I look forward to exploring and providing the 21st century skills that come from being able to communicate and think critically in this ever-changing world we live in. LESSON PLAN IN MY CLASSROOM My Mental ProcessFiguring out Dervin’s article: The tools I used After reading Brenda Dervin’s article, I still feel that there are certain parts that I need to review in order to better understand and be able to explain it to someone else. Initially, I felt a bit overwhelmed and uninterested in continuing to read the article. It was difficult for me to focus on the text and I had to reread the same sentences several times. I was actually looking forward to the few images I noticed later in the text, but continued to try and make sense of what the author was explaining before getting to the visuals. My process while reading included taking a few breaks throughout the article to think about what I was understanding before I continued reading. When I read in my head, I was easily distracted by the most minimal sounds in the room or I started thinking of something else. I found myself reading aloud and imagining the author speaking the text to me. I was able to do this after the audio clip in the youtube video provided. I watched the video that broke down topics from Dervin’s article and I found it extremely helpful. I was able to think about the explanations in the video and make connections while reading the text. That was one of the main reasons I was able to start making sense of the article. I found the video to be that bridge that I needed to cross that gap that prevented me from understanding the author's ideas. The text started to make more sense after I watched the video several times before finishing the reading. I was able to make more connections from the samples given in the video and felt more motivated to continue reading as I found more parts of the text were making sense. What is Dervin trying to teach? Although there are many things discussed in the reading, one important detail I took away from the article was that sense-making, as explained by Dervin, is “a generalizable methodology developed for the study of all situations that involve communicating”(68). The sense-making metaphor illustrates how knowledge is communicated, but Dervin points out that it’s not always a linear process as situations and the person dealing with the gap or providing assistance to help cross that “bridge” can be different. Something else I learned from the article’s exemplars is that sense-making provides information that can be used to respond to the “user’s” thinking, or in my case, to my students. When thinking about myself and my experience in the classroom, I know that all of my students are very different from each other, they think and act differently. If I understand the tools they need to successfully cross that learning bridge, I will be able to better communicate knowledge to them. Based on my thinking, if I were to teach this same reading to a high schooler I would start by using the visual presented in the video. Maybe we would analyze the image and terms used before even watching the video to try to make sense of what the visual with the bridge means. Then after watching, discussing, and thinking about the video, I would move on to the text. Personally, I felt that having some background, more specifically the video and images, allowed me to connect better with ideas in the text and be more interested in learning more. Of course this is only what helped me, I may need to provide different tools for my students. How can educational technology support competency-based learning (personalized learning)? Technology can play a big role with competency-based learning (personalized learning). A big part of personalized learning is that the learning is happening because it's personalized, so students' skills and levels are met. Through competency-based learning students can feel successful working and learning at their level. Educational Technology Technology offers tools and ways for students to focus their learning based on their needs and provides aspects to exploration that at times can't be found solely in a book or through a whole group lesson; which may not be at their level of instruction. Some educational technology tools that come to mind that can be used for personalized learning are Khan Academy, online leveled book libraries or sites like newsela; which offer leveled and engaging content for students. Technology in education can offer students access to content that triggers curiosity and gives students relevant material, which is important if they are to engage in a culture of learners. That in itself is another thing that makes me think, creating a culture of learning is not a simple task. A Culture of Learning There are a few things that come to mind after reading the article on competency-based learning. “Student agency begins with the culture…” One of my questions is, how can we create that culture of student agency in the classroom so that students are actually learning? In the article, Robin Kanaan’s explanation is cited as he explains that “Students co-determine with the teacher what learning targets they need to accomplish and how they could show evidence of their learning.” My concern is how do we start this and make sure we are assessing progress effectively? More specifically with the limited amount of time we have available. If we are going to teach and have all students learn at different levels and at a different pace, then we need to assess students differently and there needs to be a change around a lot of different areas In a way, I feel that there are aspects at our school that are similar to this model. Whole group lessons are not where all the direct instruction is happening, students are learning specific needs in the leveled small groups, at least in language arts. But we are far from what the article suggests. Yes, there are specific cases where the teacher makes accommodations and has a plan set in place for students based on their needs, but when thinking about the whole class... This brings up many topics in need of change. How students learn best, how we teach at school, and how we assess our students are only a few. These are all big conversations which I feel take time and work. Just like creating that culture in the classroom, the same needs to happen in the whole school. The new research I've collected continues to support my research question. Some of the research is directly related to my topic and other studies give a different perspective about other areas that relate to my study. Since my study focuses on student engagement, I have looked into a study titled Online Learning and Student Engagement: assessing the impact of a Collaborative Writing Requirement. This article gave me a different look at collaborative writing in an online setting. Since my research project will involve the use of technology when students write, this article can give me a different take on what has been researched in the area of engagement, the study found that collaboration had a positive effect on engagement. Now I want to find if the way technology is used in my study has a similar effect. In the study, Digital Natives: Fifth-Grade Students' Authentic and Ritualistic Engagement with Technology, Trevor Dietrich and Sandra J. Balli found that students were engaged in learning when technology was involved. By looking at their process, I can find differences and similarities in the way technology will be used in my study. An interesting detail found through the interviews in this study was that if the teacher used the technology as a tool, student engagement decreased. Technology was viewed as another direct instruction tool and not something students were in control to guide their learning. These studies allow me to continue thinking about where my research project stands and what is different about it. Why did you choose the analysis methods that you chose? How did each method that you chose answer your research question? My data included both, qualitative and quantitative results. My qualitative data consisted of a pre and a post writing assessment which would would measure any improvement in writing conventions. Qualitative data consisted of a pre and post self-evaluation that allowed students to rate their perception of engagement before and after the use of technology in their writing. I chose these methods because I wanted to see if the use of technology in the writing process would make a difference with student engagement. I also chose the quantitative assessment to see if engagement made a difference in academics. My research questions was: what impact do student-created media lessons have on student engagement in the classroom? The results of the data will show if there is any impact on engagement and academics with the use of technology. MOTIVATION - CONFUSION - WONDER The three words that can summarize this semester I can say this semester has challenged my brain in many different ways. I have felt motivated and also extremely frustrated and confused at different times. I began the semester a little nervous but excited to learn and add more to what I thought I knew about technology and education. I started the semester with a positive attitude and curious as to what we would learn, I was soon challenged as school progressed, time became limited, and life in general interrupted the order I thought I could keep. Even though it has been challenging to keep up for me, I have enjoyed learning of new tools that I see have made a good impact on many of my students, I value our meetings and moments of not understanding something completely, but being given the tools to figure it out. There have been many topics we have discussed that I have applied on a personal level to improve myself as a learner. Our discussions have made me more aware of what I have to work on as a teacher to improve myself so that I can become a better teacher. There has been a lot of self-evaluating and planning involved in my personal learning this semester. It has not been an easy semester though, and that should be good based on what we have read and learned in class. Those uncomfortable moments have really made me expand my thinking, especially with the case study and research paper, which is where I am at the moment. Even though I have been able to practice and learn new skills, I feel that my pacing has been slower than it should. At this point of the semester, I am struggling to catch up and reorganize some of my ideas and things that didn’t go quite like I thought they would. It has and continues to be a struggling learning experience but I am looking forward to the end product and being able to work on the questions that still remain. |
Jose G. CerdaArchives
May 2018
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