Key Concept 1: Student-Centered Learning
1.1 Candidates will be able to design meaningful activities and learning experiences that incorporate the guiding principles of Universal Design for Learning and appropriate technology tools and resources.
In ED 602 with Dr. Keane, we were introduced to Universal Design for Learning or UDL as an instructional framework. Our culminating class project was to create a lesson or group of lessons that incorporated at least four methods to address multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression using the lesson builder software on the CAST website.
Baskin UDL Exchange: Lesson.pdfLesson Design
I focused this lesson on my pre-AP Chemistry students and developing their conceptual understanding of Coulombic attraction while honing their skills with writing answers to Free Response Questions (FRQs). The lesson took several elements that I have utilized in the past, videos of different element reactivity and a Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) about Advanced Periodic Trends, and combined them with several new opportunities for acquisition of new knowledge as well as opportunities to display mastery.
A new hands on activity using magnets and notecards was developed to help students gain a tactile experience with the concept of attraction and a graphing activity was created that used real life data sets to experience the trends in reactivity in a visual manner.
Finally, a selection of FRQs and sample student responses was used to help students develop their metacognitive abilities while crafting complete answers to released AP questions. Students started by working on questions as a whole class group, then moved to small groups, and finally completed the final summative assessment questions as individuals using the practiced scaffold from the previous questions.
Lesson Reflection
This lesson cycle is not as heavy on the use of technology as others I have done, but the use of technology here is very targeted for the visual learner. As it is not safe to throw alkali metals into water in the classroom to demonstrate the trend in chemical reactivity, the videos created by the University of Nottingham are really ideal. The comparison of say Lithium to Cesium is very obvious and easily sets up the desire to be able to explain why. After the strictly tactile activity, following it up with a computer graphing activity using data sets for the other Periodic trends helps cement the other trends in a visual way that is much faster than graphing by hand, and more impactful than just being shown the images.
1.2 Candidates will be able to apply a learner-centered framework, including learner-centered principles, to the development of learning activities.
In ED 602 with Dr. Keane we were tasked with looking for ways that Learner Centered Principles (LCPs) were being implemented or utilized in our classrooms and our school. I chose to do a photo essay across academic disciplines in an effort to show how across a school day our school is meeting the needs of our students as learners and providing them with skills to develop into life long learners. In my photo essay I was able to document and reflect upon the following LCPs: Cognitive and Metacognitive Factors #4 - Strategic Thinking and #6 - Context of Learning, Motivational and Affective Factors #8 - Intrinsic Motivation to Learn and #9 - Effects of Motivation on Effort, Developmental and Social Factor #11 - Social Influences on Learning, Individual Differences Factors #12 - Individual Differences in Learning, #13 - Learning and Diversity and #14 - Standards and Assessment.
This exercise demonstrated to me that as a school community we are very adept at meeting students where they are in terms of identifying their weak academic areas and provide structures to support their development in those areas, as well as engaging our students in many varied levels. This does come naturally to us as an arts focused high school, but in many ways we are still stymied by the over arching structure of our school district. We struggle to take those identifed varied differences and the uniqueness of our students and provide them with choice in the classroom that provides an additional layer of engagement with school.
Learner Centered Project – Photo Essay.docx1.3 Candidates will be able to design learning opportunities that facilitate creative problem solving, communication, collaboration and critical thinking.
In ET 605 with Dr. McGinn, we were introduced to the ISTE standards for teachers and students as well as multiple different technology integration frameworks. Our culminating project was to take an existing lesson sequence and rewrite it to introduce technology into the lesson in ways that would increase communication and collaboration between the students, engage them in creative problem solving and challenge them to think critically.
Lesson Design
We selected an existing lesson sequence from Montgomery County for 8th grade middle school science. The curriculum provides teachers with readings to use, worksheets to complete, demonstrations and lab experiences for the students, but does not include any technology.
While the district provided readings were kept in the rewritten lesson, many of the disscussion portions for question and answer sessions were replaced with interactive modes of communication like Padlet and Poll Everywhere open ended questions to help ensure everyone's voice and ideas were heard. The "cookbook" lab was replaced with an online PhET simulation that provided minimal directions, but allowed for maximum flexibility and exploration allowing students to develop the relation between mass and volume on their own. This then set up a deeper exploration using another simulated lab experience on Discovery Education that challenged students to select appropriate materials for a project based on whether they sink or float.
Additional changes were made using other technologies as explained in the Rationale below.
Unit Redesign Rationale paper Baskin.docx1.4 Candidates model and promote diversity, cultural understanding, and global awareness by using digital-age communication and collaboration tools to interact locally and globally.
In ET 630 with Dr. McGinn, we were tasked with creating a project that would involve working with a global partner in collaboration to foster communication, global awareness and cultural understanding. For this project I decided to partner with a music teacher in our program to develop a Global National Anthem Project. I decided against doing something within my curricular area and focus instead on a project that might be possible for the larger school where I work, a pre-professional arts high school. The project is designed to have classrooms of music students learn how to arrange and play the national anthem from a classroom in another part of the world. An exploration of the nation, culture, and history of the anthem would be part of the learning experience during the arranging. Asynchronous technology would be used to share recordings and teach students how to provide constructive feedback to peer groups and the project would culminate in a synchronous video concert of each class performing the other nation's anthem.