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Building Units Toward the Goal
Building Units Toward the Goal
Having mapped out a broad context of what the framework of this course needed to cover in units (and when) to develop writing skills, it was time to fill in and develop activities and discussions that engaged students in active learning in accordance with my philosophy of teaching. At this point, I also went through the ZTC workshop, so spent time choosing alternate readings that could supplant or supplement the textbook. Ultimately, I found the textbook was better than most of what I found, so I kept the textbook for students who preferred everything in one place as well as more depth to their studies while offering a ZTC option for students who needed a free version of the textbook. As a course with both content and readings, I replaced most textbook readings with supplementary readings and authentic research.
The development of text was cyclical with the development of activities to develop skills. I also spent too much time on Pinterest and Teachers-Pay-Teachers considering activities and systems for organization.
Synchronous Classes
Synchronous Classes
The baseline of ideas for planning for a synchronous class eventually included this list:
Class Opening:
Class Opening:
Group Synthesis
Creating something to share, discuss, organize, and create something that reflected the assigned content
Lecture
Cover any missed content
Check in
Answer questions and address upcoming topics and events
Class Body:
Class Body:
Whole class
Debates
Discussions
Collaborative Team
Activities
Research discussions
Class Closing:
Class Closing:
Practice
Individual or group practice with a targeted skill
Exit Ticket
Working out of democratic education (Dewey, 1916; Sehr, 1997), as I developed more activities to support specific practices, I eventually began to use Mentimeter to allow students to vote for preferred activities.
Teaching Online
Teaching Online
Balancing Sync and Async in the Online Environment
Balancing Sync and Async in the Online Environment
I quickly noticed that students who chose to attend optional synchronous sessions in an online class did better than those who did not. The problem? Few students attended.
My solution was to offer a synchronous session more often, offering times that worked for students instead of just for me. Furthermore, the sessions needed to meet a student need beyond offering a lecture that could have been recorded.
Canvas needed to offer full explanations for asynchronous students while class sessions offered a way to connect and complete collaborative assignments efficiently.
The baseline of ideas for planning for a synchronous class eventually included the following list while also using the techniques outlined in Zing Instead of Zzzz.
Class Opening:
Class Opening:
Group Activity
Students start as a group examining a new reading or video, then discussing it
Provided a chance to take attendance, message missing students, and help anyone having technology issues.
Class Body:
Class Body:
Whole class (Occasional)
Debates on Padlet, posts on shared gDocs to develop skills
Collaborative Team (Common)
Activities on Padlet or G Suites (i.e.: Google Draw, Jamboard, gSlides, etc.) to develop skills, connect to each other, and collaborate
Research discussions
Class Closing:
Class Closing:
Exit Ticket
Answer questions and address upcoming topics and events
The Result?
The Result?
80% of the classes chose to show up for sessions, which meant that 80% were more successful.
Works Cited
Works Cited
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. The Macmillan Company.
Sehr, D. T. (1997). Education for public democracy. State University of New York.
Building Activities
Building Activities
Both on Canvas for asynchronous learners and in the class sessions for synchronous learners, I began to develop activities that targeted one of three areas:
Content Mastery
Research Skill Development
Writing Skills Development
This is continually informed by semesters of student input on preferred activities. By choice, I tried to develop 2-3 activities that offered the same skill development so that students could make choices in class, aligning the Brain Networks (Pakula & Luque, 2022) of "what' and "how" of learning while regularly revisiting the "why" through not only direct instruction connecting activities with the final product but also through student reflection, encouraging them to find their own sense of ownership and purpose.
Adapted from National Center on Universal Design for Learning by Pakula & Luque, 2022
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