What does a 21st century classroom look like?

There are many possible attributes, but there are some integral components such as:

• Integration of technologies - students use technologies to achieve learning goals in creative manners

• Collaborative learning environment - students work with one another to develop ideas while reasoning and balancing diverse perspectives

• Inquiry-based approach - students investigate concepts by trying to answer questions in relevant contexts

• Reflective writing - students integrate literacy to articulate and develop thoughts and ideas from a common study to create dialog

• Learning strategies to problem solving - students try & access diverse methods to think critically to solve problems.

• Hands-on approach - students are highly engaged with their learning

• Teachers take on role of facilitator - students are encouraged, guided, and supported as they acquire and critique new knowledge

• Students take control of their learning - a growth mindset is mandatory to work through the learning activities

A 21st century classroom is necessary to help communities develop independent thinkers. We have so many real-life problems in our world today and even more so in the future. Students have to learn about these problems and start to develop ideas on how best the issues can be dealt with.

Personalize Learning with Technologies!

Teachers at Forest Lake Elementary School, in Columbia, South Carolina have been integrating technology into learning to boost student achievement. They put together a list of tips for colleagues to personalize learning so that every student can work at their level, get assistance, and also be challenged at their pace. Here are the take-aways:

1. Use a myriad of media for instruction - computers with whiteboards for instructional videos, audio clips, animations, and interactive learning games. This is an older article, so I’m adding mobile devices like tablets and phones too.

2. Give ongoing feedback for students - the use of technologies for learning allows immediate and regular check-ins for levels of understanding.

3. Provide options - Digital tools allow for so many diverse methods for producing products that demonstrate understanding. Not all students need to do the same thing. Challenge them to get creative!

4. Practice basic skills - rather than drilling and killing, students can be engaged in gameplay and other means to work on basic skills in manners that aren’t as, well, boring as doing the same thing over and over and over again.

5. Differentiate! - Students can work at their level. Students can also choose to gain knowledge by utilizing their personal learning styles and also be challenged by choosing methods that help them build skills.

6. “Must Do” and “May Do” lists - I like to differentiate between the “Must Know” and “Nice to Know” information for students at the start of each unit. The “Must Know” are the main components that can help answer essential questions. The “Nice to Know” areas are vast and are extensions to the main concepts. The “Nice to Know” choices usually motivate students into working hard on their “Must Know” classwork so they have some choices to extend their learning.

7. Pretest - Access prior knowledge before beginning new units. Check where students are at with the content so growth is apparent and measurable.

8. Be flexible - Good learning activities will often go in directions that weren’t anticipated. Often, problem-solving strategies are modeled during unplanned “teachable moments” that weren’t predicted in the lesson plan.

9. Students are in the driver's seat! - Teachers should truly become comfortable with facilitating learning as opposed to direct teaching. Let students work at their pace and we, as educators, should encourage and guide, but ultimately let the students control the pace.

10. Sharing time - Be sure to plan on students communicating their findings and results. Share final products, but also the process to get there. Great way of promoting peer learning through differentiation.
    

This is a great list to work off when planning tech integration activities. Use this as a guideline to refer to when designing units. It’s always great to use thoughts and reflections from colleagues who have put some time in on something prior to diving in to something new.

Inquiry-Based Learning with the 5-E Model!

In order to manage a 21st century classroom, inquiry based learning is essential. Developing high level inquiry-based learning experiences requires thoughtful planning. The 5-E model is a constructivist approach where students build meaningful knowledge from their own prior understandings of topics to newfound insight on specific topics and concepts.

The 5 steps in the 5-E model

1. 1. Engagement - Students activate prior knowledge through collaborative discussions and activities to identify and explore what is known and also to work through any misconceptions. Questioning is so important at this stage to help guide students to develop curiosity and interest to become invested in the content and concepts. These activities are designed for learners to start making connections between current and past learning experiences and organize thoughts about the essential questions in this unit.

   2. Exploration - Research is a basis of exploring topics. This is done throughout the learning experience with various grouping strategies ranging from individual to small group to large group time on task. In this phase of learning experiences, students work through activities that promote generating new ideas, develop self-guiding questions, possibilities, and preliminary investigations.

   3. Explanation - Once students have been exposed to the guiding questions and learning expectations, this phase focuses attention on making sense of the concepts and skills. This phase is important to assess where students are to gauge how to proceed. I ask myself what is the desired level of understanding and decide if more time should be spent revisiting some of the earlier learning content, introducing additional information, or start to build higher levels of understanding. Explanation is a two-way scenario with students describing their understanding and gives the teacher opportunities to clarify and extend information. All of this helps guide students towards being able to achieve higher levels of thinking.

   4. Elaboration - This phase allows students to be challenged to extend their current thoughts and skills through inquiry-based learning experiences. The first three phases focus on thinking about the content, “playing around with it” (scrutinizing with what’s known or perceived), then getting some clarity with regards to the topic, which comes from the guiding questions. In this phase, the many facets of potential learning experiences and relevant connections can be considered. When activities are truly student-driven, outcomes often stretch beyond previously anticipated results.

   5. Evaluation - Throughout each prior phase, students have many opportunities to demonstrate their levels of understanding through formative assessments by checking for understanding activities. The appropriate summative assessment encourages students to creatively showcase the learning objectives in addition to highlighting personal and collective intellectual growth throughout the unit. Throughout individual learning activities, formative rubrics are the basis as ongoing feedback for students’ awareness of their current performance levels.

The 5-E model empowers and engages students into the class content. For the 5-E to work, there is a significant amount of planning on the front end and a ton of classroom management throughout the learning experiences. Students are all connected to a common scenario while embracing a variety of digital tools. Give it a try!!

Professional Learning Networks (PLN)

The term Professional Learning Networks (PLNs), defined by the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI), "represents any group who engages in collaborative learning with others outside of their everyday community of practice; with the ultimate aim of improving outcomes for children."