standard 1:
Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments.
a. Promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness
During a unit on the human body systems, I decided to veer from the traditional textbook and worksheets that my team traditionally used. While this resource was a thorough and well-conceived one, I wanted something more engaging for my students since we covered this unit during the same time we administered the MAP test. Needless to say, my students were ready for some fun and creativity! I found the Human Habitat Mission WebQuest that asked students to research each body system under the guise that they were to be contracted to build a house in a hostile alien environment to support human life. While I found it necessary to provide an additional scaffold and a revised rubric for students along the way, I revel in the way they bring the facts they learn about each system together in a novel product such as this PowerPoint.
Another instance in which I wanted to bring the content to life for my students in an engaging way was when we study the water cycle. I was AMAZED at the misconceptions my third graders held about Earth's water supply and the source of weather. After dispelling myths about thunder being a product of giants bowling and rain being the tears of angels, I set to work on tackling the concepts of the water cycle. Although the traditional "experiments" of creating a water cycle in a bottle certainly held my students' interest, I did not see that they were truly understanding the nature of this never ending cycle. Prepared to start from scratch, I found a fantastic WebQuest that is one of the better examples of positive interdependence I've come across. In A Day in the Life of a Water Droplet, pairs of students separate and concurrently research the states of matter and the water cycle. Upon reconvening, they utilize what they've learned about journal writing to create a story from the point of view of a child who is turned into a water droplet for the duration of one water cycle. While this movie is one of my favorites, all of my students came up with quality work year after year.
b. Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources
While the conventions this student used in his narrative leave much to be desired, it is a perfect example of how my students used the research they conducted about human impact on natural ecosystems to create a novel product. We studied the narrative form of writing, and you can especially notice his overtly obvious use of foreshadowing. Incorporating his new found understanding of wetlands and the effects of toxic waste in water ways gleaned from his online research, this student created and published this entertaining story.
Another example of a student capturing a deep understanding of real world issues can be seen via the investigation we did into the Civil Rights Movement. After choosing from several key leaders in the move towards equality, this student used online sites to research Jackie Robinson. She created a timeline using SMART Ideas software, saved it as a .jpg image file and posted it to her blog. Then, after viewing Severn Cullis-Suzuki's speech as a model for using powerful phrases and voice, this very shy student tried to emulate this in her VoiceThread persuasive piece (please move ahead to the second slide with Jackie Robinson's photo. Aniyah's is the first comment read.) She strives to convince us that Mr. Robinson deserves a monument in his honor. The most powerful part of her blog entry for me, however, is her very last comment she posted after viewing the Ruby Bridges story. It's one of those moments that brings tears to a teacher's eyes when a student makes a connection with a topic they'd learned in the past, a current school experience and their own lives.
c. Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes
With one group of students, I was really struggling with their reading fluency and accuracy. While creating audio recordings of reader's theater "performances" for them to listen to and improve upon had normally been an engaging tool to improve this skill, I was not seeing the growth I desired. In this interview, I probed the students to reflect upon their own performance and create action steps for improvement. Weeks later, I allowed them to re-record a similar script and they enjoyed hearing a vast improvement. I shared all three recordings with their families and we celebrated the growth they made as a result of their own introspection.
In another instance of kids thinking that they are P E R F E C T, especially in their writing, I had to get creative and dispel their myth. Peer editing has taken hold in my classroom with a fervor unforeseen thanks to Google Drive. My students akin finding an area to add comments in their peers' work like a treasure hunt and, since we all share a single login, the original author does not know who made the suggestion. While at first they only sought to find formatting errors and convention mistakes, I've enjoyed seeing a shift in their focus. Now they have moved on to notice grammatical and syntax errors and finally they are commenting on the craft of the writing. The screenshots shown here show their progression as they worked to help one another improve a writing piece about the human body. They are posing as Washington University doctors who will, in the end, record public service announcements imploring society to be mindful of their health habits.
In another example, students shared their narratives they'd written after researching extreme weather. The multiple blog comments below the embedded VoiceThread of this child's story illustrate their ability to critique and respond to criticism of their work.
d. Model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments
In a Discussion Board thread from my Introduction to Technology in Schools course at Mizzou, my classmates and I were each asked to share our favorite online resources. My peers came from a wide array of settings, but the resources I was learning about from them were truly a gold mine. Because I had shared Symbaloo as one of my favorite sites for use with students to bookmark links to be accessed from any device, I used that very tool to create a compilation of the other sites shared from the discussion board. Since then I've added to it and also had the opportunity to share it with colleagues outside my area of expertise. For example, a middle school math teacher postulated to the eMINTS Discussion List her need for ideas on integrating technology in her classroom. I was able to share this Symbaloo webmix containing tried and true sites much to her delight!
Just this summer I had the opportunity to participate in a research project being conducted by a Mizzou doctoral student. She was investigating the role of trust in online learning environments. While it was a challenge to devote over an hour and a half of my valuable summer time to answer her questions during our Skype chat conversation, I knew that participating in these types of ventures is an important sacrifice for the greater whole of educators. It was actually my first time using Skype in a very long time and am excited to share with my students how fluently I communicated with a colleague from the East coast, even using my smart phone when I found myself inadvertently at our local pool during our appointed "meeting" time!
a. Promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness
During a unit on the human body systems, I decided to veer from the traditional textbook and worksheets that my team traditionally used. While this resource was a thorough and well-conceived one, I wanted something more engaging for my students since we covered this unit during the same time we administered the MAP test. Needless to say, my students were ready for some fun and creativity! I found the Human Habitat Mission WebQuest that asked students to research each body system under the guise that they were to be contracted to build a house in a hostile alien environment to support human life. While I found it necessary to provide an additional scaffold and a revised rubric for students along the way, I revel in the way they bring the facts they learn about each system together in a novel product such as this PowerPoint.
Another instance in which I wanted to bring the content to life for my students in an engaging way was when we study the water cycle. I was AMAZED at the misconceptions my third graders held about Earth's water supply and the source of weather. After dispelling myths about thunder being a product of giants bowling and rain being the tears of angels, I set to work on tackling the concepts of the water cycle. Although the traditional "experiments" of creating a water cycle in a bottle certainly held my students' interest, I did not see that they were truly understanding the nature of this never ending cycle. Prepared to start from scratch, I found a fantastic WebQuest that is one of the better examples of positive interdependence I've come across. In A Day in the Life of a Water Droplet, pairs of students separate and concurrently research the states of matter and the water cycle. Upon reconvening, they utilize what they've learned about journal writing to create a story from the point of view of a child who is turned into a water droplet for the duration of one water cycle. While this movie is one of my favorites, all of my students came up with quality work year after year.
b. Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources
While the conventions this student used in his narrative leave much to be desired, it is a perfect example of how my students used the research they conducted about human impact on natural ecosystems to create a novel product. We studied the narrative form of writing, and you can especially notice his overtly obvious use of foreshadowing. Incorporating his new found understanding of wetlands and the effects of toxic waste in water ways gleaned from his online research, this student created and published this entertaining story.
Another example of a student capturing a deep understanding of real world issues can be seen via the investigation we did into the Civil Rights Movement. After choosing from several key leaders in the move towards equality, this student used online sites to research Jackie Robinson. She created a timeline using SMART Ideas software, saved it as a .jpg image file and posted it to her blog. Then, after viewing Severn Cullis-Suzuki's speech as a model for using powerful phrases and voice, this very shy student tried to emulate this in her VoiceThread persuasive piece (please move ahead to the second slide with Jackie Robinson's photo. Aniyah's is the first comment read.) She strives to convince us that Mr. Robinson deserves a monument in his honor. The most powerful part of her blog entry for me, however, is her very last comment she posted after viewing the Ruby Bridges story. It's one of those moments that brings tears to a teacher's eyes when a student makes a connection with a topic they'd learned in the past, a current school experience and their own lives.
c. Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes
With one group of students, I was really struggling with their reading fluency and accuracy. While creating audio recordings of reader's theater "performances" for them to listen to and improve upon had normally been an engaging tool to improve this skill, I was not seeing the growth I desired. In this interview, I probed the students to reflect upon their own performance and create action steps for improvement. Weeks later, I allowed them to re-record a similar script and they enjoyed hearing a vast improvement. I shared all three recordings with their families and we celebrated the growth they made as a result of their own introspection.
In another instance of kids thinking that they are P E R F E C T, especially in their writing, I had to get creative and dispel their myth. Peer editing has taken hold in my classroom with a fervor unforeseen thanks to Google Drive. My students akin finding an area to add comments in their peers' work like a treasure hunt and, since we all share a single login, the original author does not know who made the suggestion. While at first they only sought to find formatting errors and convention mistakes, I've enjoyed seeing a shift in their focus. Now they have moved on to notice grammatical and syntax errors and finally they are commenting on the craft of the writing. The screenshots shown here show their progression as they worked to help one another improve a writing piece about the human body. They are posing as Washington University doctors who will, in the end, record public service announcements imploring society to be mindful of their health habits.
In another example, students shared their narratives they'd written after researching extreme weather. The multiple blog comments below the embedded VoiceThread of this child's story illustrate their ability to critique and respond to criticism of their work.
d. Model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments
In a Discussion Board thread from my Introduction to Technology in Schools course at Mizzou, my classmates and I were each asked to share our favorite online resources. My peers came from a wide array of settings, but the resources I was learning about from them were truly a gold mine. Because I had shared Symbaloo as one of my favorite sites for use with students to bookmark links to be accessed from any device, I used that very tool to create a compilation of the other sites shared from the discussion board. Since then I've added to it and also had the opportunity to share it with colleagues outside my area of expertise. For example, a middle school math teacher postulated to the eMINTS Discussion List her need for ideas on integrating technology in her classroom. I was able to share this Symbaloo webmix containing tried and true sites much to her delight!
Just this summer I had the opportunity to participate in a research project being conducted by a Mizzou doctoral student. She was investigating the role of trust in online learning environments. While it was a challenge to devote over an hour and a half of my valuable summer time to answer her questions during our Skype chat conversation, I knew that participating in these types of ventures is an important sacrifice for the greater whole of educators. It was actually my first time using Skype in a very long time and am excited to share with my students how fluently I communicated with a colleague from the East coast, even using my smart phone when I found myself inadvertently at our local pool during our appointed "meeting" time!