This week was, I hope, really groundbreaking for me in terms of directing my teaching style and philosophy. I have been studying and working with a serious lack of student engagement within my class. I knew that my students complained of working on an essay for 20 minutes or would rush through an assignment and turn it in with obvious errors that they could have corrected. I also knew that my students play hours of video games every day after school. Instead of considering how the games were providing such an engaging experience for my students, I resented the games and used them as evidence of my students' ability to work hard. "If you can play a game for 2 hours without stopping, you can certainly write for 30 minutes without stopping." But the couldn't, or the wouldn't, and this week has finally opened my eyes as to why. They didn't want to.
I was born in 1990 so video games were certainly around when I was a child, but they were almost entirely marketed to boys. I am an only child to parents who thought that any screen was the enemy of an intelligent mind and so I never owned and rarely played any video or computer games growing up. So I have never understood why people enjoyed these games so much. There were two games, however, that I did love and play as much as I was allowed to. These were Oregon Trail and Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego? These games were not just games, they were experiences! Experiences that taught me something new, put me in charge as the decision maker, and gave me a sense of accomplishment. ( I must note that I never got to Oregon on the Oregon Trail, but I was a very reckless pioneer.) It was in thinking about these games and watching the videos about the value of gaming in the classroom and in the world that finally allowed me to understand the potential that game-based learning has for my classroom. I have always had this dream of a class where all of my students are enthusiastic about working hard, collaborating, and persevering through challenges. Most teachers will chuckle to themselves about the ridiculousness of this idea, my classroom of Eden. But what I realized this week is that that world already exists in the video game world. All I need to do is figure out how to incorporate video games effectively into my classroom. I was thinking about how I could encourage my students to work hard at the things they dislike the most with the use of games. The thing that many 4th graders despise doing is revising their writing. Meaning making improvements to their own writing. Imagine what the introduction of a quest could do for student engagement in this area. Students could earn badges for making different kinds of revisions and when they have amassed enough badges they arrive at "Best Essay World" where all the writing is beautiful and essays are above average. I had a kindergarten teacher who taught me to love and be excited by the learning process. To love the struggle because it leads to growth and to see learning as an exciting adventure we all get to partake in. That perspective on learning changed my life and for the past three years I have been trying and failing to provide the same experience for my students. I think that by "gamifying" my classroom, I just might be more successful in reaching my classroom of Eden.
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The classroom flipping tools that I chose to try out this week were Screencastify and Adobe Spark. I chose Adobe Spark because I know we will need to be using it in the future and I wanted to familiarize myself with it. The reason I chose Screencastify was because it had already been installed on all of my students' chromebooks at school. So far I have mostly been sticking to Screencastify and I have been able to make several instructional videos for my students, mostly having to do with math and computer skills. So far the students have seemed to enjoy these videos.
My videos have mostly involved me using my document camera so they can see me writing out their notes and then explaining them at the same time. I have used them as way for students to take notes on algorithmic procedures like reducing fractions or converting fractions to decimals. As Bergmann noted I quickly discovered that students needed a way to interact with the videos in order to learn from them so I then photocopy the notes I have written and white out the most important words so that students are filling in the blanks as they progress through the video. For the most part I think these videos have been a success. They certainly do not replace instruction and many of my students do not have computers at home, so I'm not completely flipping my classroom. One struggle has been that some students have been skipping through to the end of the video, filling in the blanks in their notes and then saying they are done without having heard or really thought about any of it. To solve this I have been thinking about adding a "golden word" to my videos that they need to listen for throughout the videos. One frustration I had in reading the articles is that it seemed like many teachers had a fixed mind set about flipping their classrooms. Just because students don't have devices at home doesn't mean that instructional videos play no potential role in their education. AND teachers are not the only people who can be making instructional videos. I mentioned before that Screencastify is already installed in all of my students chromebooks. So yesterday, for the first time I had them make screencasts of themselves completing math problems on Prodigy. They loved it! The next step is to have them start making instructional videos for each other. We could even post them to the web (with parent permission) so that students all over the world could use them. I hope that in the future more teachers are willing to play with the ideas of flipping their classrooms and using instructional videos to make a more meaningful learning experience for their students. I am certainly excited about the level of engagement my students have had and the motivation they will have to learn the material so that they can make videos! I really enjoyed playing with Google Forms this week. It seems that the more I learn about Google Suite the more excited I get about all of its possible applications in my classroom. I was able to use two of the Google Forms I created this week in my class, and while I had a couple hiccups to figure out, my students really seemed enjoy using them.
The first form I made was a Today In History assignment that I give to my students every morning as a part of our morning warm ups. I used to hand out these assignments on paper every morning and then review the answers with my students. Using a Google Form for this assignment was useful because it let me show the class what percentage of them got each answer correct and incorrect. I also used the Flubaroo add-on which quickly made a spreadsheet of their scores for me, which I was able to easily access and analyze without ever having to actually grade anything. The second Google Form I was able to create and use was essentially a copy of Alice Keeler’s Peer Collaboration Evaluation. My class worked in expert groups for the first time as a part of GLAD strategies implementation, so I assigned this collaboration evaluation so they could reflect on how well their group worked together, as well as how well each member of the group contributed. I was surprised and pleased by the level of depth and thoughtfulness my students demonstrated in their responses. This form also gave me a way to track how my students’ collaboration skills improve throughout the year. The last Google Form I made for my class used the add-on Choice Eliminator 2. My students tutor each other at lunch, which is lovely. But to say my class this year is energetic would be an understatement so I need to limit the number of students coming in each day. This has often resulted in students running up to me to ask if they can either tutor or be tutored that day at lunch. I will send out the form on Monday to my students which will let two tutors and six tutorees sign up for each day. This will eliminate the craziness of deciding who is coming in that day as well as let the students prepare to either tutor or be tutored. In terms of using Google Forms in my research I was thinking of using something similar to Alice Keeler’s Collaboration Evaluation form to have students self-assess their own engagement or effort that day. I was thinking this would be make coding their responses much easier and take up much less time. Overall I am excited about Google Forms and the various ways I can use them in my classroom. This is an interesting time for me personally to be thinking about using social media either as a tool for myself as an educator, or as a learning tool for my students to use. I say this because I have recently been having conversation with my friends outside the world of education about the potential benefits and harms of social media use. Many of my friends feel like social media use has largely been harmful to the way people interact with each other and can be harmful to users' mental health. I think the harm comes from viewing social media as a lifestyle or something that can replace real, in person, relationships, Social media, like any other tool, should only be used to strengthen something you already do. It can be beneficial if used correctly and harmful if used incorrectly.
For example, as a teacher I want to be able to collaborate with other teachers in my grade level. This helps me to get new great ideas to use in my classroom and to make sure that all the students receive the same education. If I use social media to find even more great strategies for my classroom and discuss those new ideas with my teacher partner and we decide together to try some, then the use of social media has been helpful to me as a professional. If, however, I stop communicating with my teaching partner because I have replaced her with social media, then my teaching partner will feel frustrated, our collaboration will fall apart, and the quality of my own teaching will suffer. The benefits or harms of social media as a professional tool largely depends, I believe on how it is used. It is critical that educators are constantly learning, and it is fantastic that we now all have a platform that enables us to learn from each other. I think this is the main benefit of social media use to teachers as professionals. But I have found it important to remind myself that in the sea of other teachers goals, interests, and dreams for their students, it is important to be strong in your own goals, interests, and dreams for your own students. There are so many incredible ideas just waiting to be found on social media, but trying one new thing every day with now direction or purpose would not improve the quality of the education your students receive. Use of social media should also be deliberate, purposeful, and rooted in your own teaching philosophy, Finally there is the more intimidating topic of students using social media. If I saw that a student of mine had made an inappropriate post outside of school, I would absolutely bring it up with them the next time I saw them. I would ask them about the post, and depending on what it was discuss other more appropriate ways to express themselves. Again, depending on the severity of the post, I would also contact the students' parents just to let them know that I saw it and had some concerns. It is obviously up to the parents of the student how they conduct themselves outside of school, but they deserve to be notified if their child is posting something alarming. I think one crucial think to remember when having an interaction like this with a student is that they did not grow up thinking of the internet as an unsecured and dangerous place like my, or older generations did. For these kids writing a post is as normal as calling your friend's house and having to awkwardly talk to someone's mom before talking to your friend was for us. These kids will shut down and reject us if we treat them like they are crazy for treating the internet as no big deal. To them its not a big deal, and they lack the foresight and the knowledge to really understand the harm they could be doing to themselves. We should teach our students about proper social media use the same way we teach them about anything. Not blaming them for what they don't know by encouraging them to ask questions, and to think critically and independently. One new tool that I have been using in my classroom recently is a Google add-on called speaked. As I mentioned in my previous blog post my students are currently working on writing opinion essays. One challenge that my students how often have with their writing is clarity. I often ask my students to whisper read their writing to themselves so that they can hear whether or not they're writing is portraying their ideas clearly. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, many of my students decide not to do this , and the quality of their writing is lowered. Speakd is an add-on for google docs which reads the writing in the google document out loud. Well editing and revising the last essay they wrote, my students used speakd to hear their writing read out loud to them. I found that many more students were willing to listen to their writing using the add-on then we're willing to read their writing to themselves. Many students told me that this helped them to improve the quality and clarity of their writing before turning in their final essays.
It did not take long to learn how to use this add-on as it is very simple to use. I realized that part of my students enthusiasm for using this tool was due to its novelty and that some of their enthusiasm might decrease in the future as it becomes more normalized in our classroom routine. One limitation of the tool is that the prosody of the reading done by speakd is very mechanical. As I am always encouraging my students to improve their reading prosody , I thought it was important to explain to my students that this was a writing to all and not an example of how they should read out loud. Other than that I thought that this add-on was an excellent addition to my students editing and revising tool bucket. As I have been learning about digital literacy this week, I have repeatedly been struck by the thought that teachers should not think of digital literacy, or even media literacy, as being something separate from the literacy skills we teach daily in our classrooms. Digital literacy is simply the skills that students need in order to successfully exchange information with the digital world. But like all information literacy , students need guidance and teaching in order to maximize and realize their potential. According to Anya Kemenetz, in her article on Mind/Shift called 5 Things To Know About Kids and Their Screen Time, children make up 33% of internet users worldwide (Kemenetz, 2018). This means that children are already impacted by the digital world in a huge way and that we as teachers need to address the growing need for digital literacy.
In my own class I have noticed that while my students are very good at gaming and using platforms like snapchat and youtube, they lack critical digital skills that they will need to be successful both in school and in the work world. My students for example are very unfamiliar with platforms such as Google docs or Google slides that would help them to present information in a new way. My students are also in need of instruction on how to properly use social media as well as how to analyze internet sources and cite them correctly. While this may seem like a lot of extra instruction, i believe that these literacy skills can easily be combined with the literacy skills we already teach. For example, my students are learning how to write opinion essays at the moment. I could easily assign students topic to write on, ask that they find two opposing opinions on their topic online, evaluate the strength of each opinion, and use that information to formulate their own opinion. During the time that my students are writing this essay I could teach mini-lessons on online researching skills, evaluating the legitimacy of sources found online, as well as how to cite online sources accurately. By combining the literacy skills I am already teaching with new digital literacy skills I can find the time in my schedule to teach both media literacy and digital literacy. I also believe that digital literacy presents and opportunity for teachers to help connect what students learn in school with their lives outside of school. I teach at a low income school where students often experience vastly different environments at school and at home. This causes them to feel like what they learn in school does not affect their lives outside of school. But technology use is one of the few things that my students experience in both worlds, and by teaching my students the digital literacy skills they will need to be successful and safe in the digital world, I can help to bring those worlds a little bit closer together. Kamenetz, Anya. “5 Things To Know About Kids and Their Screen Time.” MindShift, 3 Jan. 2018, ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2018/01/03/5-things-to-know-about-kids-and-their- screen-time/. According to Common Sense Education students in grades 3-5 can think abstractly, make broad connections, and have a passionate interest in morality. They are beginning to be able to understand each other's motivations, and most crucially are beginning to form cliques which test their existing social skills. I have seen all of these traits in my fourth grade students. Because they often struggle with balancing their desire to have tight social friend groups and their desire to be fair to everyone, they need a lot of "effective communication" lessons. My students are also almost constantly connected to social media when they are outside of school and this means that digital citizenship and digital communication skills are also essential for a happy childhood.
In my own class there was an instance where digital communication was used in a hurtful way which disrupted the classroom atmosphere and left several students very upset. I only wish I could go back to that time, knowing what I know now about the importance of digital communication instruction. That being said I am excited to begin teaching my current students about healthy digital communication. The first lesson I would like to carry out would be an introduction to cyber-bullying. I think it is important that students understand why cyber bullying happens, how it is much easier to say something mean to somebody online than it is in person. This will lead to a discussion of why people should never say something to somebody online that they would not say to them in person. Students would be invited but not pressured to share any experiences they had had with cyber-bullying and would then discuss healthy ways of responding to cyber-bullies. The second lesson I would like to teach my students in regards to digital communication is focused on safety. Many of my students have YouTube channels and I recently discovered that many of them do not have their privacy setting restricted at all. I have discussed this with their parents, but many were unconcerned. I, however, worry that people they don't know may try to contact them in some way so I want to make sure they know how to respond in case that happens. We will discuss why it is important to never talk to people whom you have connection to on the internet. Without scaring them, I will make clear to them that that is an excellent time to talk to a trusted adult who can help them evaluate the validity of the person contacting them and appropriate further actions. There is a great game on Interland where students have to identify a phisher in their midst in order to cross a rive. I thought this would be a great fun way to bring the lesson to a close. I would also like to use digital communication to strengthen a positive atmosphere in my classroom. Every Friday my students give each other compliments. They are assigned a person to compliment so that everybody compliments everybody throughout the year, but I would like to create a forum where they could leave each other shout outs. These would be compliments given to a classmate of their choosing. I think knowing that a classmate went out of their way to give them a compliment would be even more rewarding and the digital aspect of the forum would engage those who might be uncomfortable giving a shout out in person. My main take away from this week has been that technology is going to be an integral part of our students lives and to not adequately prepare them for all aspects of that life would be to fail them. I am excited to start talking to my students about digital communication and digital citizenship in general! Competency-based learning is a teaching practice which is more focused on the individual needs of students. Students progress through skills at their own rate of growth and make personalized goals with their teacher in order to demonstrate learning. Educational technology can be very helpful in a competency-based classroom where prepping for all of students' individual goals can become an overwhelming amount of work for the teacher. Many computer programs can measure students' skill abilities and then immediately generate problems or worksheets that are targeted towards each individual students' needs. Technology can also serve as a great source of engagement. FrontRow, a program often used in my classroom, has a game-like quality which allows students to earn coins to buy virtual prizes.
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April 2018
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