In our current climate of teaching; the normal design of lesson plans has transitioned to a different teaching platform. As educators, we have had to adapt to this new virtual distance learning. In March 2020, school environments changed. However, in August 2020; all components of teaching have changed; the environment and the lesson materials. A teacher can not just hand reading material to student and state, "let's read." Now, a teacher must figure out the benenficial way to have students acquire reading material. The new normal for students is synchronous teaching and asychronous lessons. The teachers had to teach via Zoom and assign lessons in digital platforms like Seesaw or Google classroom. My expierence was that I had to adapt my teaching to first teaching the students how to use digital tools and then once the skills were acquired then I was able to see results of thinking and learning in my second graders. At first, it was an exhausting process, but eventually when the thinking and learning my students have displayed to me has been inspring for me as an educator. In the beginnning of this academic school year 2020-2021, my biggest needs to know was does my student have a reliable internet connection and a laptop computer (not an iPad). The, my need to know was are the students doing the assignments on their own or are they receiving help from parents or other people. I also look at assessment I administered online to the students during synchronous time that do not line up to the asychronous work I recieved from students in their digital platforms. I stated my concerns to parents and students. I needed to see accurate results from students to re-design my lesson plans. Then I did see a shift happen! Students were mastering digital platforms I presented to them. Now, my need to knows are how I am going to show the results of the knowledge students have acquired through digtial tools. Am I going to design an end of the year research project that show transfer of higher level thinking? Or is it just accurate to end of the year assessments through Seesaw, Google forms and other online databases. It is a very exciting time in education. Teacher need to design lessons that build upon student acquired techical knowledge to achieve comprehension. I highly recommend ditchthattextbook.com/remixing-traditional-lessons-with-tech-a-framework-you-can-use/?epik=dj0yJnU9NFphbHd0V2VHWnNwT2ZUUHFiODFfV1dtRWlXWHZPVWcmcD0wJm49WFdydnM1cEtBRXMxcUdzM003VElVZyZ0PUFBQUFBR0FZWk9Z/ Johnathan Lethem discusses of the Madeline Hunter Lesson Plan Remix as disucsued ast the cue.org/bold conference.
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After reading the first three chapters of The Flat World and Education by Linda Darling-Hammond, I am wondering what future books will be written about virtual teaching during the pandemic and the impact on our students' learning goals. A lot of the issues that Darling-Hammond writes about in the flat world and education are issues that we are dealing with during this pandemic. On page 37 she writes, “concentrated poverty is shorthand for a constellation of inequalities that shapes schooling.” This is exactly the situation that we are dealing with country-wide with online learning with our students. Some school districts have plenty of technology and learning resources for students to acquire their learning goals at home during this pandemic. However there are schools that are struggling to have internet access, time for students to be online and other learning resources in the home during the pandemic. Darling-Hammond also points out, “having a critical mass of students from higher-income families with better educated parents may mean that there are more role models in classrooms who model successful learning strategies( pg. 37).” I believe this is happening right now with virtual learning, students who have motivated educated parents are more likely to have their students on devices learning during this pandemic. Thus the divide between students acquiring knowledge and students not acquiring knowledge is becoming more apparent. My passion is to promote lifelong learning for all our students. My question is and hopefully I'll be able to answer it; is how to achieve lifelong learning through higher level thinking during this virtual learning. |
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