Quality Education
Title of Project: Quality Education
Schools and Teachers
Middle/ High School Teachers: Samantha Drexler, Tori Kalberer, Amanda Haleiko
ENL Proficiency Level | ENL Program | Standards | Technology
Entering, Transitioning, Expanding | Stand-Alone | WHST5, WHST6, WHST7 | Flipgrid, Padlet, Google Slides
Assessments
Teacher checklist of requirements for each John Spencer stop on the cycle.
Peer interaction: Discuss their plan of change
Peer interaction: Sharing their ideas on what happens in their home town schools
Flipgrid: Speaking and listening assessment
Presentation: Writing and listening assessment
Google slideshow: Writing, interaction and reading assessment
Padlet: Reading and writing assessment
Description
Students will learn about equity (quality education) through a mini lesson presented by the ENL teachers in stand alone. Students will be introduced to an example of quality educations and describe what makes this education model/example for the group of students equitable. Students will learn the components of what schools need to produce a quality education. Then, students will research about their own home country and decide on an area of inequity seen in their home country and conduct their research. Then, students will present their findings to their peers and begin to design a plan for change. Students will engage in peer conferencing and review. For the final project, students will be given project based choices to create and present their final project.
Content
Students are learning about quality education and what it means for a school to consist of quality education. Students will research their home country and get aware of inequalities in the local school system. Students will brainstorm ideas and a plan for change to help their home countries work towards quality education.
Language
Students will be discussing their inequitable findings. Students will also be presenting to the other ENL students on their plan of change/action.
Technology
Creativity in presenting ideas through student choice. Students are working towards their quality education in their home country local school by researching information, writing solutions, and creating a presentation.
Procedure
Students were engaged by having the information about the project through our google slide show. The students enjoy when all the information is in one spot and easy to find. The students also found it interesting to connect what happens in each of their hometown countries. We have students at all different language proficiency levels in the same classroom, and it was nice to have the students connect on something so close to home and familiar to them all. Students used their home language to write and speak in the Flipgrid video, by choice and ELP.
First, students were introduced to the John Spencer Design Learning cycle. We showed the video of the cycle and explained how this process is like the writing cycle and it will help us stay organized and on track.
Then, the students were immersed into learning and introducing them to the definition of quality education. We approached the question, as what quality education is and examples of quality education in schools. We showed two videos to explain this definition to make it draw connections to the students.
After, the students read about the inequities of education and what they look like around the world. The article showed pictures and specific examples.
The students then thought of their home country schools and brainstormed what quality education category their home country needs to work on to have a more stable quality education. The students liked the process and were engaged by this point. We continued on researching about their home town in correlation to the inequity and finding the stem reason on why the country makes their decisions and why their education is the way it is. We thought about geographical and social environments.
Furthermore, we took the research and the students each thought of a plan of change they want to present to their home country.
At the end, the students recorded flip grids and were able to share to the other classes.
Resources and Other Materials
Flipgrid
Padlet
Google Slides
Reflection
We observed that certain groups of students were more interested and engaged with different activities. For instance, Ms. Kalberer’s 7th grade stand alone students were eager to research about the education system in their home countries, while the 6th grade stand alone students were interested in watching more videos about low quality education in different countries. Something that worked really well for our students was having them create a Flipgrid video for every ENL student to watch. We provided students with a “fill in the blank” style script in English and their home language. Students were asked to complete the scripts based on their research findings and record the video speaking in both languages (native and English). This provided students with great writing, speaking, and listening practice in English. It also made it possible for all of our secondary ENL students to view each other’s work and give feedback to one another. We also made the padlet sharable to all ENL students and it was nice to go back, read and discuss what the other students wrote.