Flamingos
This task was designed by E. Ç. as part of CITE204 Instructional Design course (2020-2021 Fall semester) targeting 5th grade science students in Turkey. Contents of this page:
Task
The Learning Environment
Principles of Authentic Learning
Introduction:
In this activity, the role of middle school 5th-grade students is discussed in the science class with the theme "human and environment". By taking this role, the students develop their problem-solving skills using technology in their Science lessons, which improves their ability to use English correctly and effectively. They use critical thinking and environmental protection skills. Also, it is aimed to teach students some conceptual skills such as environmental culture, its relations with the environment, destructive natural events and biodiversity.
This study's main purpose is to ensure the continuity of learning by associating the concepts of "biological diversity" and "harms caused by environmental pollution" with real life situation.
This learning environment was designed based on the Eleven Principles Authentic learning. The characteristics of these 11 elements are stated below and their applications to this learning environment are also explained.
Scenario:
Many bird lovers and bird watchers visit Ayluga and Gülseren Ponds to watch flamingos. These ponds are the two of the most important places where the Flamingos take their break in Northern Cyprus. Ayluga and Gülseren ponds, turn into a visual feast during the sunset for their romantic scenery created by both the birds and the appearance of the ponds.
Regretfully, these two natural reserves in the Çanakkale and Karakol Districts of Famagusta, which used to be hosting thousands of migratory birds, are not so much preferable to these migrating birds any longer. Today, Ponds are surrounded by a disturbing pile of construction waste and marbles. The residents of the neighbourhood have reported that despite the frequent complaints, the worrying appearance around the pond is not eliminated. People want the municipality to take a hand in their troubles.
Famagusta Municipal officials visited our school and demanded that the students work with a foreign advertising company, affiliated to the European Union, called "Leading Advertising". The advertising company want you to intervene in the pollution factors that arise to redesign the area and to make the region more environmentally friendly. They also want you to investigate the problem in-depth and write an article on the causes and effects of pollution and suggest what can be done to eliminate this problem. Your article will be published in the school's newspaper. You will be able to participate in the environmental and world week "Best Poster" competition held at our school with the environmental posters you will prepare
Description of the learning environment
Overview
The student will see the real-life equivalent of this problem (why he/she learned this information) in the education process with this activity.
The students will notice that what they have learned is related to their environment, and they will understand that they can solve these problems with their ideas. This situation will motivate the students.
Science teacher, Helen, creates an annual curriculum of design problems that will develop students` skills in the subject and develop objects that fit real-world problems in their area.
The teacher uses current issues or events, while preparing her program, and asks her students to find the reasons and solutions to problems/needs by redesigning these problematic structures.
The ponds
The two ponds where students can find solutions to the problem and collect data on biodiversity and environmental pollution are as follows. Famagusta municipality and the advertising company agreed by the municipality are also established around these two ponds. The students' school is within walking distance of both ponds. Ponds are in a position that students can easily reach to collect data.
The Design Team
As the design team of the advertising company, the students identified their friends who are good at computers. Thus, students will collaborate and use social media effectively.
Students will collaborate on searching and researching the necessary information, bring together their posts, discuss, select the best and publish it on social media.
The students shared some tasks between them. These tasks are like writing survey questions, interviews or required correspondence.
They aimed to achieve their goals by working collaboratively to write the necessary articles to be published in the school's journalism club, to write the necessary presentation for the world and environment week to be celebrated on June 5, 2021 and to prepare the necessary posters for the competition.
The teacher was the advertising company director and was responsible for approving the work's final version, providing the necessary feedback and editing the work written.
It was decided to communicate using Moodle, an open-source learning platform capable of live video conferencing with digital whiteboards familiar to the students.
The e-learning environment:
Leading Advertising is part of the learning environment. It was designed according to authentic learning environments' characteristics, as suggested by Herrington, Oliver, Woo & Reeves. How each feature is implemented is explained in detail below. Leading Advertising principal's office was created using ThingLink (Figure 2).
In this office, the Principal of the Advertising Company has a desk, noticeboard and a bookcase.
The desk
The desk consists of clickable files such as the collected articles, calendar and a laptop device with online resources. Under the table is the manager's bag, which contains Web 2.0 tools in his diary.
Calendar
A calendar picture is placed on the Principal's desk and is linked to Moodle's electronic calendar. Users using this link can follow the activity days related to the work, the start, and the activity deadline.
Files about the biodiversity of Northern Cyprus.
In this file, there are brochures given to students by KUŞKOR, the EMU Environment Club's pdf resources and papers downloaded from the internet and copied as pdf. Students will benefit from these in their slide where they will prepare.
Online sources videos about environmental problems
Students can reach the videos about environmental problems.
For the students to get the right resources online, the teacher added a few videos to help them. Students will be able to access videos about environmental problems from here and get background information about the works they will use on the slide.
Students also have information about flamingos and animal diversity in Northern Cyprus.
The Notice Board
The bulletin board, called the notice board (Figure 4), simulates realism for asynchronous communication and is used as an online platform where teachers and participants are involved in discussions in an asynchronous context. It represents the social constructivist element of the learning environment in which the students build knowledge together.
Chat room
A place where students can freely communicate and exchange ideas with the groups they will work within the chat room. Students can easily share the information they have collected with their groups from here.
Topics of the presentation for World Environment Day
This section contains topics that students will research. Students will gather their data and write an article in the school newspaper. They will prepare a slide and slogan poster about World Environment Day. Also, students will participate in the competition with this slogan poster.
After the students exchanged ideas among themselves, they determined the following topics for article writing, considering that the main problem might be the following issues.
Topics are as follows:
1. What is the impact of environmental pollution?
2. What are the current issues affecting biodiversity and what can be done to protect it?
3. What can be done to make flamingos choose the island again?
4. Could environmental pollution be the main reason for the tragic decline in the number of flamingos?
The students decided to put all these headlines together and write an article for the newspaper.
Dictionary & Thesaurus
The teacher provided an online dictionary with a thesaurus for the students (see Figure 4 below). Students will be able to use these dictionaries when needed while preparing their slides.
Principal's agenda
The book, called Principal's agenda, is a free online platform that the teacher will use to explain web 2.0 tools such as, Powtoon, Canva, and Prezi which are the students will use them for their presentation. At the end of the term, students will present their slides. The program allows students to turn pages like a real book.
Web 2.0 tools
Powtoon:
Powtoon is a web-based animation software. Users can create animated presentations by manipulating pre-created objects, imported images, provided music and user created voice-overs. Sts will make an animation video that can be used to educate people about the dangers of environmental pollution to be shared on social media.
Prezi
Prezi is a presentation tool that can be used as an alternative to traditional slide making programs such as PowerPoint. Students will prepare their presentations with Prezi.
Canva
Students can design posters using Canva. Users use a free photo or a photo uploaded by themselves. Users can also edit photos by using Canva. Students will create posters and slogans for the World and Environment Day by using the Canva program.
Elements of Authentic Learning and their Application to this Project
1. Authentic activities have real-world relevance:
A real-world scenario will be given to provide students with an authentic learning environment.
Students are expected to experience the excitement of providing real solutions to real problems as a foreign advertising company, or researcher affiliated with the European Union.
Students are first expected to find out where the problem stems about the species living in Cyprus, why flamingos choose these two lakes, the factors affecting biodiversity and environmental problems by using their new critical thinking skills. It is also expected what kind of solutions they can produce to protect biodiversity and the environment. Students are expected to design Gülseren and Ayluga ponds as they dream. Students who are good at drawing are expected to support the study and work as a real environmental engineer by taking their friends' ideas. Here, students experience what an environmental engineer does.
Students learn to look at problems differently with authentic learning.
2. Authentic activities are complex and ill-defined, requiring students to define the tasks and sub-tasks needed to complete the activity over a sustained period of time:
The problem is not clearly presented to the students. The problem will be given to them in an ill-defined way. Students will make their plans and decide on the steps they will follow, sub-steps, how they will organise the project and which tools they will use. Students are expected to find the origin of the problem about the species living in Cyprus, why flamingos choose these two lakes, factors affecting biodiversity, and environmental problems using their critical thinking skills. They will also try to find solutions to protect biodiversity and the environment. Afterwards, the creatures living in the pond are expected to think, discuss and find solutions to what kind of environmental pollution they may be affected by.
Students use complex judgment skills, such as critical thinking and problem-solving and higher-order thinking skills to achieve these results.
In authentic learning, the tasks assigned to the student are open-ended and complex. Since there is no single solution to the problem, there are multiple solutions and conclusions for it. It would be wrong to expect the student to complete this in a one hour class.
3. Authentic activities provide the opportunity for students to examine the task from different perspectives, using a variety of resources:
Students are expected to continue their research using different classroom resources (resource books, journals, newspapers, etc.). Students can use the university library's internet resources. They may be expected to contact the EMU Environmental Club or KUŞKOR. All students are expected to gather necessary information, discuss their findings and learn about problems.
They must have learned how to set up a website to announce environmental pollution to a wider audience.
They must have learned how to use Canva for their slides and posters, and Prezi and Powtoon for an animated video to share on social media.
Learning is not just within the walls of the classroom.
4. Authentic activities provide the opportunity to collaborate
Students will be expected to work collaboratively. For example, when designing the Web, gathering information and designing posters, and brainstorming.
The bulletin board they will use in Moodle will create a platform for students to write and discuss their ideas. Students will be able to share their knowledge and ideas here. In this part, the teacher will support and scaffold student- learning by asking a variety of questions.
The teacher can ask the students some questions wherever necessary but should support them without affecting their methods.
5. Authentic activities provide the opportunity to reflect
Authentic learning allows students to present their learning processes and learning recourses. Authentic learning focuses on real-world tasks that engage students. Students work actively and engage in various inquiries throughout the research period.
Authentic learning enables students to engage in high-level thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, design, construct, and evaluation in complex tasks. Students are expected to work collaboratively to find solutions to environmental pollution and extinct biodiversity, share the results with their friends, and help their peers who have difficulty learning the subject in the classroom. Students are expected to participate in collaborative learning activities with animation, poster design and newspaper articles. At the end of the project, students will present their task, and they will give some details about their works. Each student will also present the task individually what kind of work he/she does in the group during the study.
6. Authentic activities lead beyond domain–and skill-specific outcomes
This Authentic activity in science class teaches students to use their skills in different subjects as well. The students participate in the research to develop all the essential language skills by doing activities such as discussing, reading. Furthermore, they are expected to deal with geography and natural sciences while learning about the region's geography and flamingos' homeland. It is a good indication that authentic learning is interdisciplinary.
Students will have the opportunity to integrate their interdisciplinary knowledge through research topics.
Students use the ICT course information, for web design, Canva and Prezi, Thinglink usage. While landscaping, they use their knowledge in Art class and their English skills for newspaper writing. It also requires analysis, high-level thinking for thinking and producing.
7. Authentic activities are seamlessly integrated with assessment
Students are evaluated based on the quality and result of their projects. The teacher will create a rubric to distinguish students' performance based on criteria. Students will be assessed according to their ability to transfer new knowledge and skills to different situations. Students will be evaluated by how Media and Technology will be used, how they do the slide and presentation. The evaluation will be assessed as a whole, not interdisciplinary.
8. Authentic activities yield polished products valuable in their own right rather than as preparation for something else
Students will be motivated by dealing with real-world problems and made inferences about various issues. They will be developed their ability to analyse, synthesise and evaluate.
Students will be used technology for the purpose they wanted to achieve. Students will be used the word, graphics, pictures and basic design programs for their advertising projects.
Therefore, students' final product, e.g. An article to be published in the school's bulletin will be in quality and format that can be shared by the target audience and will try to make their voices heard in the school newspaper.
On June 5, 2021, a slogan poster will be prepared for the World and Environment Day, and they will participate in the competition. In order to eliminate the pollution around the two ponds, they will draw the design of the landscaping in their dreams and display them at the school exhibition at the end of the year.
9. Authentic activities are open-ended, allowing competing solutions and diversity of outcome
The project which the students are working on will be a process that allows for a variety of products that open the door to multiple solutions of the real world. Therefore, it is also not known how students will approach the problem, since how they will find, collect and analyse data for this study is open-ended. There may be more than one solution to the problem.
10. Authentic activities are conducive to both learning and communicating
The students' skills of using English correctly, effectively and beautifully will develop while presenting the information. They will create a poster related to The "World and Environment Week" by using canva. They will write an article for the school newspaper so they will be also used the knowledge they had before. Thus, information will be ceased to be inert. Their critical thinking skills, research skills will improve. They will able to use their creative thinking skills. By sharing information, they'll improve their communication skills, and thus knowledge become more permanent. They'll realise that they should be more sensitive to the environment.
11. Authentic activities provide motivational factors
Students will be motivated by interdisciplinary work and will deal with more than one subject. Allowing technology age children to use technology in their lessons will increase their motivation and interest.
Students will be more interested in the lesson as they will be interested in real-world problems.
This is the learning environment that all children should learn in this way. This quote epitomises the idea behind authentic learning.
With my activity, I included the students in the learning process with authentic learning. Students took the lead role, conducted experiments and discovered, acquired project-based learning experiences. We notice that authentic learning supports critical thinking skills. Also, authentic learning encourages students to collaborate, communicate and create.