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Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter teaching and learn, and technology to facilitate experiences, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments.
Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter teaching and learn, and technology to facilitate experiences, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments.
a. Promote, support and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness
a. Promote, support and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness
Each year I work with students to create a spoken word CD, but due to the dominance of the MP3 format, CDs are a little out of fashion. This year we decided to create a YouTube channel and augment our writing with video. In order to encourage students to make creative videos I did a couple of examples. The first video was an attempt to show the students a work in progress, so that they didn't think they had to achieve perfection on the first try. Stack Those Papers is a final product using audio recorded during our field trip to the studio. I usually don't want to take the spotlight off of the students, but this time it gave some shy students the courage to step into the booth.
b. Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources
b. Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources
I work in an alternative program with only one teacher per subject area, so we created a cross-curricular professional learning community (PLC) called Exploratory. The aim of the course is for students to choose topics to explore and become self-motivated learners. Since this can be overwhelming for students we usually provide a broad general topic for them to focus on. The project is usually guided by our all school read. This year we read All American Boys by Brendan Kiely and Jason Reynolds and Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary by Walter Dean Myers. We also had guest speakers visit four time throughout the year to discuss systemic racism. As a culminating project we had each class work as a team to address a problem they saw in educational system. Students had to research and analyze a problem with the system and develop a solution. The ultimate goal was to present these solutions to the school board. While the teams did not reach that level this year we did have district level administrators and board members visit during the process to help guide the students in design authentic viable solutions. Below is the slide presentation developed by my team of students. It is by no means perfect, but it did accomplish the goal of the students directing their own learning and actively participating in the world around them instead of just collecting points for the grade book.
Each semester, I also require the students to read a book independently and write a review on Goodreads.com. The goal is to get them to think about what they read and provide that information to an authentic audience. There is a link to a student review below.
Artifacts
c. Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understand and thinking, planning, and creatitve processes
c. Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understand and thinking, planning, and creatitve processes
I am going to make some excuses at this point. Working at the alternative school has worn away some of my teaching skills. It has been several years since I had my students reflect on their work because I am struggling to make sure they turn in the assignment to begin with. Since taking the courses for this degree, I have attempted to reintroduce the concept. I added reflection as an element of the grade on a collaborative assignment this last semester.
Artifacts
Reflection on Collaborative Website
d. Model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues and other in face-to-face and virtual environments.
d. Model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues and other in face-to-face and virtual environments.
For several years our staff creates a collaborative interdisciplinary class. The students invariably ask who was responsible for inflicting these assignments on them, and we can confidently say that we worked together. While I participate in virtual collaboration on a number of social networking platforms, the students are not aware of this, and district policy limits the interaction with students. However, there are now more tools that the students can connect to through their Google accounts. The most interesting one that I added this year was NowComment. It is a collaborative reading app in which I upload a text and students comment and respond to each other. Students also collaborated in creating websites this year to evaluate the heroic cycle in modern film.
Artifact
Google Sites
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