When I first started looking for articles and research for my topic; how to demonstrate deeper learning in our virutal distance learning; it was very diffcult for me to find research. However, after reading John Hattie's book; Visible Learning, I realized there was quite alot of information and research to support my IRB and my ARP. Hattie for me is standing out as a master in reserach in as he states in the article, Learning Strategies; a syynthesis and conceptual model by John C. Hattie and Gregory Donoghue www.nature.com/articles/npjscilearn201613; "it is best not to run separate sessions on learning strategies but to embed the various strategies within the content of the subject, to be clearer about developing both surface and deep learning, and promoting their associated optimal strategies and to teach the skills of transfer of learning." When I look at visuals like the one above, it helps me to understand how I am going to map out the Action Research for my driving question. I can demonstrated transfer of higher level thinking in my distance virtual classroom, I just have to use all of the tools for my students to achieve this transfer of surface knowledge of second grade standards to the deep understanding and the shift to higher level thinking. Another great resource for my IRB and ARP is the research done by the Common Sense Media on kids from zer to eight and the analysis of online activity of children. www.commonsensemedia.org/research/the-common-sense-census-media-use-by-kids-age-zero-to-eight-2020?j=8085517&sfmc_sub=170645953&l=2048712_HTML&u=157812502&mid=6409703&jb=92&utm_source=edu-ka_youtube-0-8-launch_20201117&utm_medium=email "This report is part of a series of probability-based surveys documenting media-use patterns among children from birth to age 8 in the U.S. The 2020 survey includes a nationally representative sample of more than 1,440 parents from all regions of the country, from lower- and higher-income families, with over-sampling of Black and Hispanic/Latinx parents to enable analysis by demographic factors within racial and ethnic groups." This resource from Common Sense Media is been an excellent reference for my Action Research Plan as it is from 2020 and has a great content that I have been referencing. As illustrated in Figure C; children from the ages of 0-8 years old are watching online videos 37% and Subscription services 29% of total viewing. This finding allowed me to get excited that when children attend my second grade classroom at the age of 7; it can be assumed that children are highly familar with online virtual acess. There is a skill and a will; I just need to do the thrill to see the higher level of thinking that does occur in my virtual distant classroom. The Common Sense Media research additonally allowed my to process my methology of my research and how to analyze and understand the data that I will be requiring. Another visual that I enjoyed analyzing and applying to my driving question was the following from the Common Sense Media research: Table like this have allowed me to understand where the 5 to 8 is expierencing in online videos. In reference to the top diagram of a model of learning: There is a skill and a will; I just need to master the thrill for my students to illustrate the higher level of thinking that does occur in my virtual distant classroom.
3 Comments
As Sir Ken Robinson pointed out in "Bring on the Learning Revolution" Ted talk, the two words that do stand out in Abraham Lincoln's speech is: "rise with". For me, this is exactually what my fellow teachers and I have down in the past seven months of this school year, we have risen with the occasion of the distance virtual learning classroom. For me, I have been developing my innovative classrooms through synchronous learning and asynchronous learning. I have introduced many digital platforms for my students to show their learning like Seesaw, Flipgrids, Edpuzzle, Kahoots, and google forms/slides. I, as an educator have understood that in the case of distance virual learning is new so I must think and act anew. However, I feel sometimes there is a linear narrative as Sir Ken Robinson states with education and we must have an evolution of the desired results of teaching. What drives me as an educator is that I want my students to understand the enjoyment of learning new things. As the young Dalton Sherman asks, "do you believe?" Yes, I believe my students will reach thier highest potential with my help and teaching. I want to support my students in whatever platforms helps them succeed in their own personal potential. I agree with the concept of we don't really know what the jobs of the future are going to be, so for me I must teach my students to have a desire to learn new things, how to overcome struggles while learning new things, and the happiness of learning new concepts. I want all my students to be authentic to their true self.
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. 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. Share any thinking, new design steps, progress, challenges, and or successes you have experienced during this course. How have you evolved as an innovative thinker?
Change is good! This was one of my first notes I wrote down when starting this program. Change is good. In the past years of my career as an educator; I would of never of stated change is good. As a primary teacher, change can be very upsetting for my students. However, with this program and teaching during a pandemic, I have realized that change is essential. If I am not willing to change for my teaching habits, designs and progress; my student will not benefit. I have realized that I need to change for my students! Their educational goals are consistently changing, thus my teaching goals need to evolve and change. In order to understand my evolution or successes I have experienced during this course, I went back to my initial blog. Blog #1 # 2 about where I am in my teaching and my reading of Qualitative Research in Innovative Learning. As I reread my blogs, I realized how far I have come in this course. When I first started this course, I was a knowledgeable educator that thrived on trying new concepts for my teaching formats. However, I forgot about design of lessons and how to evolve as a learner for myself. It took me to step out of my comfort zones to become an educator and a learner all over again. It has been enlightening to see myself evolve from a basic teacher to see myself slowly transforming into a researcher with an action research plan. The challenges I have experienced is how to take all the knowledge I am acquiring and to put it into my everyday teaching practices. I am able to do this; however I don't want to overload my students. I also have shared all of my new acquired to my grade level team and to members at my school site. I am very excited where I came from at my beginning of my blogs to my final blog. I am very excited to see my evolution with our next round of courses and to see where my ARP is in the final months of this program. Mastery learning is a method of instruction where the focus is on the role of feedback in learning. Furthermore, mastery learning refers to a category of instructional methods with establishes a level of perfomance that al student must "master" before moving on the the next unit (Slavin, 1987).
Games have always been helpful for me in my teaching practices. Many years ago, I used Bingo for sight words, telling time and math word problems. I love the concept of using Bingo to achieve transfer of learning with second grade standards. However, I was not confident in online tools for gamification for my second graders. This all changed with our current climate of virtual teaching and learning. As Matthew Farber states in How to find games for classroom learning Edutopia (2020), "I simply suggest thinking about bringing in one or two fames t add to or enhance course readings." I am currently using Kahoot in my classroom. Every Friday to assess weekly learing in spelling, reading comprehension, and math skills I design Kahoot games. I find that when I put the questions in a format of Kahoot, my students love to play. While researching and learning about new games to implement in my classroom structure, I would like to access ClassDojo. I have seen ClassDojo work in classrooms, but I was always hesitant as it online participitation from students and parents. With the current class I am teaching, I can see how I can use the data from ClassDojo to see if my students are achieving higher level thinking in my classroom. I also think ClassDojo would be a good format to access after the winter break when my students will need an incentive to "back into learning". The district is also currently in need of online assessments for our students. After looking at GoFormative looks like a great tool for our students to show learning in these formats. I will be creating a Bridges math assessment in this format for my research question to show data of students learning in an online learning world. Additional games I would like to use for my students is Legend of Learnings and Prodigy. I have heard from many fellow teachers that these are great tools to enable our students to play while they are learning. The possibilites are endless and I want to try all of them at once. However, I realize it is baby steps and I have to do one at at time for my students to master one online platform before I move onto another one! It is very exciting and fun for me too! I love encorporating gamification into my classroom. As for games I am playing, I have to admit I do not play games. However, I did try Roblox with my niece and nephew that live in Boston. We all like to log in and play together; I am not very good. It is more of a fun laugh for my niece and nephew to laugh at me trying to make my avatar jump over fire or not get killed within the first second. Currently, my student are playing Among Us and I am going to try and play over the Christmas Break. "The real 21st cenutry around us isn't so obvious to us, so instead we spend our time responding rationally to a world which we understand and recognize but which no longer exists". Edie Obeng.
This quote reminds me of an activity our staff did about ten years ago, where we as elementary school teachers had to think of what a high school graduate would look like in the year 2020. My groups design of the future 2020 graduate was a young girl whom did not know what she wanted to learn in college because she had no idea what the jobs of the future were going to be. The final response to this professional development day was, we the teachers had no idea what the future graduate was going to look like, but we as a staff needed to be on the cutting edge of education and "anticipitate" the future learner and what she may need. To be honest, after that actitivty, I don't remember us going back and reassessing the future learner. Just like Mr. Obeng stated, ; we spent out time responding to the world in which we understood." Often times as educators, we don't was to take a risk, we don't want to have a "smart failure". However, after our first set of classes; I think it is extremely important for us as educators to always be thinking about the future and the new world after midnight. The tools I put in my lesson designs were: Sreencastify, Edpuzzle, Pear Deck, Flipgrid and Seesaw. All of these tools worked really well for my class and my instruction. I think that the students enjoyed Screencastify because it changed up my teaching. My students were not engaging as much as they had intially in the beginning of the school year. Edpuzzle was also enjoyable for my students, but I now realize I need to have multiple choice options in the future for my students and aslo some visual components for the struggling readers. Pear Deck I have been trying to master all school year and during synchronous time; IT DID NOT WORK! My students did not like the Pear Deck format. However, when I put the Pear Deck slides in my Seesaw account and assigned it to my students; it went amazing. It finally clicked for me and my students. Using the article from Edutopia (2020) www.edutopia.org/technology-intergration;" adding annotations like arrow, text labels, or circles can provide 'visual caffolding' clarifies your teaching priorities" I realzied it does help my students to engaged and focus their attention to the goals of the lessons. As for flipgrids; I am using them as follow up to lessons, checking for understanding and as an assessment tool. Flipgrid allows the student to orally explain his/her thinking in a fun format and allows the students to create something. As a class, we review the flipgrids during synchronous time; all of these video and audio tools. As Jennifer Gonzalez (2020). "9 ways Online Teaching Should be Different from face-to face." Cult of Pedagogy.com outlines with her interview with Melanie Kitchen, I would like to do an screencastify lesson for parents on the learning pit as how long it will take for the children to master these different platforms. Over the fall break, I will design a lesson for the parents to allow the parents to see there is going to be a period of struggle for the students with these new online learning platforms. I also really liked the inforgraphics for the hybrid model from both of Shenniger, Eric (2020) "Moving to a hybrid learning model" and "The pedagogy of blended learning". As a grade level lead, I will be sharing these visuals to my peer teachers during our Professional Learning Community Meetings.
This week for our assignment of creating google forms, I created a check-in form for my students to fill out to let me know how he/she is feeling. I am excited to share this survey on Monday and make it a daily part of our morning routine. I look forward to seeing his/her responses in upcoming weeks. Additionally, I created a Number Corner check up for my students. Designing a Number Corner check up for my students in google forms was very successful for me. I am still exploring the Add-ons, but I am not finding one that looks like it is user friendly for 7/8 year olds I did find an add-ons for making word clouds. I created one for kindness day, the students will watch a sesame street clip about kindness and then type in words that represent kindnes, then I will generate a word cloud; I am very excited. Overall, I am going to continue using Google forms and I am very excited about designing more for students and their families.
|
|