My advice to others when designing your own online course module...
I would have to say that my critical design decisions came about as I compared the CMS and LMS sites and used the helpful comparison tool that this course provides. In doing this comparison, I was able to choose what CMS or LMS was the best fit for my teaching and student learning. One of the features that I kept coming back to in helping determine which CMS I wanted to use was how user-friendly the course is in terms of navigation and layout. After choosing Haiku for this reason and many more, I could not have been happier with my choice as I designed my own course module on Haiku Learning. The ease of using the navigation tools is something that I am proud of, as well as the many additional features that led to the design of my course module.
It is always important whether face to face or online, to make sure students are aware of the learning objectives and goals. Whether it be for a particular lesson or entire unit, the “Learning Targets” are identified at the very beginning of each lesson in a very consistent format. Also, essential questions are highlighted on the “home page” and reinforced throughout the course module. I wanted to make sure the lessons/articles/media relate to the learning objectives. I also made sure with some modifications that my assessments/discussion prompts, etc. also related to the content being taught and of course the learning targets.
Some pitfalls I encountered along the way were at first I tried to use and embed powerpoints, and other media sources that were already created. However, I found it much more beneficial to develop my own content. I did my own screencasts, my own powerpoint presentations, as well as my own prezi for my students to view and learn the content. This way I was able to design these features for my students and make sure they fit my expectations and targeted the content I wanted them to learn, as well as the learning objectives. My advice to others is to create your own content from the beginning so that it applies to the learning the students are doing and make sure to walk the students through these media sources. It is also important to make sure the students are aware and in tune with the PURPOSE behind the content and activities in each lesson. Your students will be more invested when they can relate to the learning that goes on and know the purpose behind the lessons.
As I reflect on my teaching, student learning, implementation of technology, and the lesson plan as a whole, I am incredibly pleased with the overall presentation. This particular unit in which I chose to implement technology, is a major part of our reading workshop and is a building block for the “thinking about characters” that will take place for the duration of the year. The unit focuses on growing theories about characters and making inferences based on the character’s thoughts and actions throughout the story. Rather than having the students write a book report, which can be tedious and somewhat boring after a while, I chose to implement technology and have the students create a PowerPoint presentation on the main character in their book. As an educator, I recognize the value of partnerships and having conversations about reading with others. My fifth graders are involved in Book Clubs, which I created based on interest and strengths and struggles in reading. The number one aspect of this lesson plan I did revise after some more thinking and reflecting on student learning, is I decided to have the fifth graders create one PowerPoint presentation as a book club focusing on the main character in their book. Originally, I was going to have students create a PowerPoint presentation on his or her own based on the character from their book club story. There are two major reasons why I decided to change this part of the lesson; I value teamwork and collaboration and the work the fifth graders are doing together as a result of the book clubs and realize this would be a wonderful and motivating project for the group members to do together. “Partnerships are crucial to success in reading. Comprehension skyrockets when students talk about their books with others, even briefly. In partnerships, students have opportunities to build on others’ ideas and to express their own ideas clearly and persuasively” (http://oaklandk12-public.rubiconatalas.org). Rather than having the kids view 29 presentations at the end of this unit, they will be viewing seven presentations that are creative and one of a kind that reflect their hard work and dedication as a group. The other change I made with this particular lesson, is I gave the students ONE essential question for this presentation: What type of person is your character and why? I decided to have the students “zoom in” on character traits for this particular PowerPoint presentation so they had a certain focus. Due to the new introduction of this technology resource, I didn’t want the overall lesson to be too complicated. It is crucial students be aware of the lesson objective and learning targets so they know the expectations and can be successful in their learning. I began the reading workshop lesson with our read aloud, Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo with my fifth graders and we had a wonderful discussion about “Character Traits” and what those words mean and the differences between character traits and physical traits. We generated an ongoing list of character traits using precise words. I asked my fifth graders to think about their own character traits and many were eager to share examples with the class. We had a wonderful discussion and I shared some examples of character traits of students in the class. This is just a brief description of how the lesson began. Over the course of three weeks, the students added to an anchor chart with character trait descriptors, learned HOW to identify character traits based on character’s thoughts, actions, and dialogue in the story, participated in higher-order thinking within book club and whole class discussions, provided evidence for thinking, created character webs based on character traits. Each of these activities led up to the final, exciting task, which was to create a PowerPoint presentation identifying ten character traits of the main character in your book club narrative. When I introduced this project, there was literally hooting and hollering in my classroom among the fifth graders- they were so excited to be creating a PowerPoint presentation for the first time. In order to increase motivation and give kids a visual to help them understand the expectations, I showed the students an example of a slideshow that I created on the character in our class read aloud. After viewing this PowerPoint, the fifth graders were pumped to begin! I went through the PowerPoint tutorial step-by-step and I made sure to have directions displayed on the projector and also an individual hard copy for each student to reference throughout the project. There are many advantages to using technology in the classroom and in this particular lesson, the main advantage with implementing technology for this character lesson, was the ability for me to easily differentiate instruction. Teaching the kids to use PowerPoint went much more smoothly than I had anticipated, but it was important for me to be organized with my instruction and tutorial of HOW to use it and the different features available. Some students were content with creating a more simple presentation, whereas others were up for a challenge and created presentations with all the bells and whistles (as they say). I also found it beneficial that the boys and girls created these PowerPoints with book club members, and had the ability to converse and ask questions of one another, encouraging substantive conversation and higher-order thinking skills. The students were thrilled to be able to share their presentations with the class, and it pushed them to create even higher quality presentations knowing they would have an audience. In this lesson and throughout this character unit, technology only enhanced student learning, the delivery of the content, and the overall outcome of the lesson.
Below you will find my video created on iMovie. My fifth graders were having difficulty truly understanding what "vital capacity" means and were bringing different ideas to the table. To help better understand this, the students participated in an experiment measuring lung volume and vital capacity. We used lung volume bags to measure a student's vital capacity for the shortest, medium height, and tallest individuals in the class. The three participants followed directions to take maximum inhalation and then exhale in one, long continuous breath into the lung volume bag. Students found after watching and participating in this experiment and collaborating with one another that a person's height does in fact effect vital capacity. The kids learned that the taller the individual, the greater his or her vital capacity. Enjoy...!
It was quite an eye opener doing this interview with a fifth grade student of mine. She was a great sport, and a bit nervous while I was asking her questions. I was able to identify various misconceptions in her understanding that I will address in my own teaching. Enjoy listening to the podcast when you click on the box below.
As I ponder what it means to be a lifelong learner, many different ideas come to mind. However, one in particular involves exactly what I am doing...continuing my education to better myself, my students, and my instruction. I am always trying to instill the belief in my students that learning is a lifelong, never-ending process and I truly believe in the common saying, "You learn something new every day." I am constantly learning from my own students, colleagues, family, and friends. The technology courses I have taken have opened my eyes to the various technology tools and resources that we have at our fingertips and the importance of taking advantage of these tools in order to enhance student learning.
One of my greatest challenges this year has been the lack of student motivation in my classroom. I can honestly say that the various lessons I have learned incorporating the elements of TPACK have helped my fifth graders become more engaged in their learning throughout the course of the year. Implementing technology in my classroom is something I value as an educator and realize now more than ever, there are ways to do so more effectively to boost student motivation and understanding. I plan on developing a classroom blog to keep students and parents informed. A goal of mine is to create and incorporate more WebQuests into curricular areas...my students loved the WebQuest I created on traveling through space and learned great information while participating in the quest. I plan on continuing to use VoiceThread as a means to share their reading and writing online. I feel I have grown as an educator and accomplished many of my goals already, however, I have many more goals in mind thanks to CEP 810, 811, and especially 812.
When I think about tackling Wicked Problems in my classroom and at my school, the thought is overwhelming yet exciting. The benefits of being able to solve a Wicked Problem far outweigh the challenges to get to that point. I am hoping to continue to collaborate with my teaching partners on this and tackle the issue of lack of parent communication in our building. Another Wicked Problem I hope to work out is issues within our math curriculum and students struggling because they do not understand the basic math facts. These are just a couple out of the many struggles teachers deal with on a daily basis.
I am thrilled to officially be a member of the MAET program and look forward to continuing my education in teaching and implementing technology in my classroom. I already have all of my courses lined up and am proud of myself for sticking with it and doing the best I can! I am so grateful to have the support of my friends and family. It is amazing how much they support me in everything I do, and continuing on to get my Masters in Educational Technology is no exception. As long as my daughter continues to take naps during the day (when I complete much of my course work) I will be good to go!
I feel fortunate to be able to learn so many valuable lessons through these technology courses, which I then am able to apply in my own classroom and also teach my colleagues; creating blogs, podcasts, data visualizations, imovies, PowerPoint presentations, WebQuests, etc...I look forward to continuing to learn and collaborate with my classmates, knowledgeable instructors and our incredible world of technology, which changes each and every day.
Enjoy my Prezi below that shows my Professional Learning Plan!
As I mentioned in my previous post, I have created a survey for my fifth graders to take regarding the Wicked Problem project...PowerPoint presentations to create nonfiction book reports. Take a look at some of the questions I asked...can't wait to see the results! I created the survey using Urtak because I love how user friendly it is, and it is a quick and easy way for my students to be able to communicate their feelings regarding the PowerPoint presentations using a "yes" or "no" format.
To me, this is what my Wicked Problem was all about; being able to seamlessly blend all the aspects of TPACK in a way that challenged my students to use technology in order to enhance our Language Arts and Science curriculum. As a refresher, click on the following link and you will be reminded just what my Wicked Problem originally looked like: Wicked Problem Part A. After discussing with colleagues and revising a couple of areas, I then created a Podcast with a visual of just how I was planning on implementing this project and "helping solve" this Wicked Problem. This is truly a design where all parts of TPACK come together as one. Click on the following link to view my podcast: Wicked Problem Part B. I then went ahead and implemented this project in my classroom and the following link explains just how this implementation was done: Wicked Problem Part C.
Lastly, I will reflect on how everything has come together and my feelings of personal success, as well as student success. I feel that with every Wicked Problem comes a need of a technology resource in order to help "fix" this problem. However, technology cannot be the only resource that alleviates some of the issues, the teacher must think critically and realistically about what Wicked Problems are a priority and I feel collaboration is very important. I discussed student needs with my teaching partners and although there are many, we all felt a need to boost our student nonfiction strategies, understanding, and engagement. I proposed the idea of rather than having our students write book reports, instead they use technology for these projects and create their own PowerPoint presentations. They were thrilled with this idea, as was I, and I was even more excited to tell my students about their new assignment. After introducing their next assignment by modeling a PowerPoint presentation that I created on Saturn, I told the students that this is what they would be doing for their next nonfiction book report and they actually cheered!! What a great feeling as a teacher to have a student applause after introducing a new assignment. I knew at that moment they were excited about these projects and the interest alone, would keep them more engaged than usual.
The project did get implemented as I had originally planned and I felt that introducing the project by "showing" the students a PowerPoint of my own rather than "telling" them what they would be doing, would be a great way to captivate their attention and that is exactly what it did. I also feel it was important to give my students "choices" throughout this project. I let them choose if they wanted to work alone, with a partner, or in a group depending on the Solar System topic they chose to research. I also let them choose what topic they were most interested in, and feel that option is very important in this lesson so the students are more motivated because they are intrigued about their research topic. However, I will limit the topic choices next time to just the list I give my students, not letting them make up or add any extras. That became a bit of an issue when it came to grading information on planets using the rubric I created, when some students chose to research "supernovas" or "constellations," not just planets. I feel the fifth graders did an outstanding job learning how to create PowerPoints and applying each piece I modeled step by step from formatting their slides to adding pictures with captions, to incorporating slide transitions and sound. I am truly proud of their hard work and dedication throughout this project. The PowerPoint presentation was worth fifty points total, and the majority of my students received an A, which this year, and with this particular group of unmotivated students, is not usually the case. Needless to say, I am very pleased!
After taking a look at some of the questions asked, here is the link to my survey results https://urtak.com/u/82485/questions/118143. I am pleased by how my students responded on this survey and know that by reviewing these results, the project was a success! Due to previous classroom conversations after the kids presented their work, I knew that they enjoyed this project and were much more engaged than with usual book reports. Being able to see the survey results visually really allowed me to see that the kids appreciated being able to use technology in a way that enhanced the work they were doing. I honestly am pleasantly surprised that there were zero "no" answers after forty five responses, but it makes me feel like the plan worked better than anticipated.
In the process of learning about "Wicked Problems" and viewing other classmate's problems, I have realized that these problems can range from simple to very complex, these issues can effect just one classroom or the whole school building, but all must be solved using the TPACK model and using it effectively. I cannot expect my fifth graders to know how to research using the Internet if they have never actually been taught before. I also cannot expect my students to know that not everything out there is true and factual, and it is a process to teach kids these lessons. Solving a "Wicked Problem" takes time and energy...more so than one may realize. As I said before, it is important and very helpful to collaborate with others, when deciding what problem to solve first. As with any issue that arises, there is not just one right answer and it may be a trial process, but eventually and with the help of others, it can be solved!
I have two more Wicked Problems in mind that I intend to tackle in the future (hopefully sooner than later)! One is the unfortunate fact that our students are struggling with our math curriculum because they do not have the basic math facts down. I believe we need to adopt an online program that kids can do throughout the school year AND summer in order to practice these basic skills. An ongoing problem we have is also parent support and communication. I think having a blog just to communicate with parents might help with this, or as I was researching this problem, I came across the following clip on youtube regarding student, parent, and teacher communication via texting. Check out the clip yourself and maybe this could be a solution for you as well! These are just two that I have been thinking about as we started learning about Wicked Problems in CEP812.
Thank you for reading and good luck to those of you as you begin the process of solving your own "Wicked Problems."
There is a whole process that goes into implementing a project like this, and I am thrilled to say it was a success for me as a teacher and my students! You can view the presentation below on slideshare of just how I went about implementing this project. As a reminder, my Wicked Problem focuses on how there needed to be a shift in thinking when it comes to book reports on informational topics. Many times the word "boring" comes to mind and is what I hear from my students. Rather than having my fifth graders put written reports together, I wanted to implement technology and have them create PowerPoint presentations individually or with others (their choice) on an informational topic, such as objects in our solar system.
The comic below is just a little something I created on www.pixton.com. You should check this site out...what a great way for kids to have fun with storytelling! I am definitely going to use this in the classroom. Make sure to view it in full screen (click on the far bottom right) in order to see the full comic!
I am overwhelmingly pleased with the dedication to research, creativity, and technology that was displayed in each of my student's work. I would have to say my greatest surprise was how incredibly engaged and taken the kids were with this project the WHOLE time. I have a tough group this year and it's often difficult for them to remain focused, but they had no problems with engagement during their assigned tasks. I was also pleasantly surprised at the effort given by all students, and those that were in a partnership or group took their individual role seriously and did their best work. I was constantly monitoring the involvement in groups and my students were cooperative and eager to share and take part in the research and creation of the PowerPoint. They were constantly asking "When can we work on our Solar System PowerPoints?" My fifth graders enjoyed learning how to create a project like this, just as much as I loved teaching it because all of my students were so eager to learn and proud of their hard work!
In order to implement the project again more successfully next year, I will be sure to have an already created list of possible topics and will not let kids add on their own ideas (as I allowed with this project). The reason being that due to the requirements of the final product (PowerPoint) I set the rubric accordingly to certain information that the kids researched in order to create their presentation and I aligned this information more so with the planets, moon, and sun. Some of my students wanted to research other topics like Supernovas, Galaxies, Black Holes, etc. While I love the idea of letting the students help create the list of topics, I should have stuck to the planets in general because I knew in my mind what information I required and the guidelines for the PowerPoints. It was more of a challenge to grade the presentations for alternate topics as mentioned above and in order to create a more fair and equal grading system, I will have the topics be more focused on the planets and moon and sun; this is also what our fifth grade curriculum focuses on.
Take a look at the slideshare presentation below and you can see just how this work is implemented in my classroom. The best part was watching each student present their final product and having family members of the students come view these presentations. I am proud of their hard work and success! As a follow up to these projects, I am going to create a survey in order to find out more about what the kids enjoyed most about this project, things to change, and any additional ideas I can implement for next year. I am also planning on sharing a few of these at our next staff meeting as the principal has asked me to share the work of the students using a technology tool like Microsoft PowerPoint.
