My primary audience is my middle school students, I want to develop curriculum with the new integrated model the right way. Whether it be sharing a learning tool we used in class, like flipgrid or complete overhauls on how I have approached my teaching. My colleagues are also my audience. I have shared and will continue to share both tools and pedagogy I have learned. I have shared tech tools at our content meetings and shared my pre and post test data when trying new methods.
My ultimate goal is for students to have a clear understanding of what they are learning and a purpose of why they are learning it. I also want them to be part of the learning process where they will reflect on what they have learned and still need to learn. My challenge is building this culture in middle school and getting them to be part of the process. Two things that really stuck out from the readings. Baggio-”needs to be relevant to the learner” And Clarke “How will you and the student know what they’ve learned” My initial thoughts in addressing the challenge of sharing what I have learned was with my students. How can I get this into kid terms so they can understand it. I have found they needed to start with something concrete like pre and post test so they had a number to see their learning. I am also going to try and let the kids come up with how they can transfer the knowledge they learned. I also used a google form with the learning intentions for the unit and will be revisiting weekly so they can reflect on how they think they are learning Also, to share the learning with colleagues can be tricky. We meet twice a month for an hour as a content team. I share with the other 7th grade science teacher but not the rest of the department or staff. Well sometimes in passing if another teacher is trying the same strategies.
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Last year I used Google Maps for an end product for our research on Endangered Species. This was a part to a bigger on human impact to species adaptations and evolution. I broke the class into the four hemispheres and each hemisphere had to create a map. Each Member Created a "pin" with the information on the animal or plant they chose in that hemisphere. Here is the link to what was required Map Requirements and a screen shot of one of my classes Making the maps and creating the pins was a quick learning curve. The tough part was having them share the Map with me to make a class map. That took many tries and clicks on the help button. That turned out to be a good learning experience in itself. Students really liked learning the Tech skill of google maps. Some even plotted out their spring break vacation. I hope to use it for mapping earthquakes and volcanoes this year so kids can discover the Plate Boundaries. Kids can upload real time data from the USGS website right to their map. We could use the boundaries feature to plot the seismic waves and lava flows. Research individual events and post photos, information and videos. You can also change the terrain features to get a map version or earth topography. Maybe use the map and direction features for evacuation routes. Who knows what else the kids will think of. I think this could be the right tool for many things. I got the idea of using it from a Social Studies teacher that used it for his students portfolio. They plotted as they learned about us history throughout the year.I could see using it math to plan and budget a road trip. English plot settings maybe. Ideas are endless. Even with our plates overflowing with covering our curriculum and everything else that comes along, it is our obligation as a school system to teach kids digital literacy. Before you begin teaching digital literacy I think you, yourself, need to have a clear understanding of what it means to you and your class. According to Common Sense ”Digital literacy specifically applies to media from the internet, smartphones, video games, and other nontraditional sources.” I like how they say and other nontraditional sources. I think the sources mentioned are becoming the common “traditional” sources. Students need the skills to find, identify, evaluate and use the information they gather from these sources with proper credit. For the remainder of this year I am going to try to teach it alongside the content we are learning. I am going to try and add them into the learning objectives as we create the units and projects going forward. I would then begin teaching it with introducing the term digital literacy and see what it means to the kids. I would then introduce them to the following 5 and see what they mean to them. Searching effectively, Protecting their and others' private information online, Giving proper credit when using other people's work, Understanding digital footprints, and Respecting each other's ideas and opinions. This could be done using blogs or a program like Today’s meet or poll everywhere. After taking some time previewing and discussing all five skills I would focus on one or two in our upcoming units. For example we just started our unit on atoms and molecules and I want them to find interactive sites that they can build and play with atoms and molecules. This would be an opportunity to leverage the skill of searching effectively. I am going to look at the lessons in common sense and see if I can tweak what they have and add my content instead. At a minimum use their lessons as a guide to make sure I am covering the skill. Next year I plan on incorporating these in my beginning of the year project on our School Wide Learning Outcomes and our school wide BEST expectations so the students will have a good foundation for the year. My entire work setting is a never ending inquiry cycle. Not only have we shifted to the NGSS and adapted the integrated model we have been provided no materials or curriculum to do this. The district curriculum is a text book that has been at the school longer than me (9 years) and only covers one third of our new 7th grade standards. We are expected to create our own curriculum/projects from scratch. Needless to say we are in a constant inquiry cycle of design, apply, evaluate, reflect and redesign for next time.
On a smaller scale I see the inquiry cycle manifest itself within my school day. I am constantly making adjustments to my lessons from period to period as I am going through them. I joke with my 7th period and tell them how lucky they are since I had 4 previous periods to work out the kinks. They often finish faster too, as I have streamed line things. Like Baggio says adults have a purpose for learning and are intrinsically motivated. The learning process and what we learning in these classes is helping me "bridge that gap". I want my students to learn with a purpose in mind, while providing them with a vehicle, tools and using the language they are comfortable with so they can access the knowledge they need. Taking this course is allowing me to continue to grow and adapt as a teacher. As the education landscape and the needs of the students is continuously changing, now at a faster rate than ever, we need to be open to change with it. After looking at the 9Ps by Vicki Davis in the "What Your Students Really Need to Know About Digital Citizenship" I realize I only explicitly teach #6 permission and #8 professionalism. This is probably because they pertain directly to my content standards. In my 7th grade science class we use technology all the time. I do hold them accountable for academic language when doing blogs and replying to classmates with written communication and collaboration grades. I got the sentence frames that are used in their language arts classes so there is some consistency. They must also cite references. As far as the others like pictures, I try and embed and model good digital citizenship, mostly address things as they arise. The one thing I haven't thought about was passwords, most programs we use they can sign in using their google accounts. Should they be changing them up?
Some ways I want to incorporate digital citizenship in my science classes are to have be efficient in searching the internet, be able to Identify reliable sources and have them understand they leave a digital footprint. I have really noticed students don't have these skills. There was a good lesson plan on Hurricane Katrina on the Stanford’s History Education Group (SHEG) website that helped students Identify what is and isn't a legitimate online source. I could incorporate this into our unit on earth's processes. I also am going us common sense media's resources on Information Literacy. they define Information Literacy as " Information literacy includes the ability to identify, find, evaluate, and use information effectively. From effective search strategies to evaluation techniques, students learn how to evaluate the quality, credibility, and validity of websites, and give proper credit." Pretty much hits what I need my kids to do in science. Too many to list so here's the Link I really think digital citizenship needs to be explicitly taught but with the pressures we have to create and cover content it is hard to fit it into a science class. I try to embed it when I can The first thing I did was print the article so I could interact with the text. My initial thought was to read through the text once to try and get an overview but I found myself rereading and spinning in circles. For me it was way to complex and dense just to give it a read through. I watched the video and that helped make more sense of it. I then stayed with youtube and found a video of Brenda Dervin giving a talk on sense making. After listening to her I felt had a good understanding and a better foundation and the article started to make better sense. Dervin is trying to teach us that there is a huge gap in communication and we need bridge that gap. These gaps can be created with the systems and social constructs that we have in place and the underlying assumptions she talks about. "Sense-making is seen, thus, as a generalizable methodology developed for the study of all situations that involve communications" ? I am still unclear on the methodology part and need to read through the exemplars again. If I had to teach this same reading content to a high schooler I would start with the youtube videos and the examples she gives in her talk, ie the librarian, computer sales clerk, and the doctor and cancer patient. Then have them read it in small chunks, maybe using a CLOSE read strategy, with opportunities to discuss. I know there are programs out there that assign a lexile to a text but I wonder if there is one that will adjust the text to a lower lexile? I am using a video instead of a diagram, hope that is ok. While watching the super bowl I saw this commercial for Rocket Mortgage. I showed my wife, who has gone through this program, and said "that commercial reminds me of Dervin". After an eye roll and a "Which one was Dervin?" she agreed.
I needed Keegan-Michael Key when I was going through the reading I agree with this approach to teaching and learning. To me this would be ideal if you have the systems and a common language shared throughout the school and the district in place. We need to take the time to teach the kids how to learn and think this way as well as hold themselves accountable for their learning. A Growth mindset is something that needs to be developed. I can try to develop this in my class but if they aren't doing it all the time I'm not sure what the impact will be. I think it needs to be part of their DNA. Thank you Kayla for taking it with such a young group of kids.
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AuthorJeff Albertazzi Archives
November 2018
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