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Tag: Design (page 1 of 3)

Design Cycle Junior Version

Our first-grade teachers will be teaching the design cycle in their next unit. The following is our whole school’s take on the design cycle, followed by the junior version the first-grade teachers use. It will be interesting to see how the second through fourth-grade teachers expand on the junior version as the students build their understanding.

 

Videography and 4MAT: Quadrant III- Skills

4MATI am continuing with posts connected to how videography can be integrated into one’s teaching by using the 4MAT approach to curriculum design. The following originates from the Teacher Toolkit that I created in graduate school.

Quadrant III: Conceptualizing To Doing- Applications: How will I use this information? How?

Practice- The team moves into production mode, setting up the scenes and videotaping them. They use the production skills taught to them by their teacher. As mentioned, this is where authentic experiential learning takes place. McCarthy writes about students practicing and “experimenting, mastering, predicting, recording, seeing how things work, …” (p. 221). It is fun for the teacher to watch the students doing all these actions as they set up scenes and check for lighting, sound, background, etc.

Extend- The students are in fast learning mode, critiquing and improving their video skills. The students also see the concepts of their storyboard in real life, which leads to ongoing changes and new ways to make the scenes work as they had conceptualized them in their minds. At the same time, storyboards are sometimes rewritten as the production crew sees different directions to take the production. One could not ask for a more constructivist and authentic learning situation.

Learning Climate- Motion and doing, looking at possibilities, seeing what happens, and trying it again- a little differently. As you can see, many different learning intelligences come into play with digital video cameras. Every teacher has students who need movement in their learning.

Method- Dr. McCarthy points to the teacher as a coach in this quadrant. The teacher works as facilitator guiding students and setting up a structure to keep them in opportunistic learning situations. Another description might be behind-the-scenes “facilitator” as the teacher steps in with open-ended and guiding questions at opportune times. One helpful question is, “What do you think will happen if you do it that way?” One reality is that time constraints weigh in on student enthusiasm and the final product. In other words, the teacher sometimes needs to help students “see” weaknesses in their video shots in two takes instead of ten. A guiding question can bring that “aha” moment a little quicker.

The video camera is actively used in this “doing” quadrant.

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Videography and 4MAT: Quadrant II- Concepts

4MAT

I am continuing with posts connected to how videography can be integrated into one’s teaching by using the 4MAT approach to curriculum design. The following originates from the Teacher Toolkit that I created in graduate school.

Quadrant II: Reflecting To Conceptualizing- Concepts: What do the subject matter experts say about the topic? What?

Imagine- The deconstruction process mentioned in my previous post now moves into the construction step as the students look at the bigger picture putting the pieces together to develop the purpose and message of their video. The storyboarding occurs here, which also involves Quadrant III using some of the skills the teacher teaches. Dr. McCarthy writes about the students using metaphors for understanding from their perspectives. Metaphors are also naturally used as part of the writing process to represent the ideas and meaning the student creators want to get across in their videos.

Inform- This is the information gathering phase of students going to information resources.

Learning Climate- The production team is still in the pre-production phase, with students working on research about the content the video will cover. The students work individually and in teams gathering information and reporting to each other.

Method- Dr. McCarthy states that this is where the “teaching,” as in direct instruction in most classrooms, occurs. One strength of video production is that the high level of buy-in by the students means that they can be expected to gather the information themselves (as opposed to teacher instruction) from resources structured by the teacher (e.g., WebQuest, a listing of Web bookmarks, library books on reserve, etc.). Video projects involve talent in front of the camera sharing information or actual interviews of “authentic” talent for interviews. This form of talent often can be subject matter experts. As video production is a constructivist learning process, it makes sense to allow the students to gather and interpret the data independently.

Using the camera does not fit in this quadrant, but the video production process of gathering information for the content of the videos does fit well here.

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ICL to Support Family History Unit

family history sample

What does Information and Communication Literacies (ICL) look like when supporting a unit of study? We just completed an ICL project after collaborating with our Second Grade teacher on the “Family History” unit—the learning goals centered on helping students better understand timelines, family history, heritage, and geography.

We designed three lessons to incorporate research using the Britannica online database. The students used a handout (see below) to record information about one or more of their ancestor’s home countries. As we are an international school, many of our families have roots all over the globe. The students used Inspiration to communicate their findings via a diagram.

Students used ICL skills of:

  • navigating an online database
  • reading digital information
  • taking notes
  • downloading, saving, and naming images
  • inserting images into Inspiration
  • resizing and placing images using design skills
  • saving and naming a document
  • inserting an audio file into Inspiration
  • searching the Inspiration library for applicable symbols to insert into the diagram

The project included extension activities for students who understood their ancestors more and could connect that knowledge to images. Thus students could add a voice file in their second language (Spanish or French), giving more background information about their ancestor(s). They could also search the Inspiration symbol (image) library for pictures connected to their ancestors’ backgrounds. It was interesting to see the abstract connection-making for students who knew, for example, that their relative was in the military, held a government position, was an author, was famous, etc.

__________________________________

Using the Britannica Online Database

Reading and Taking Notes for Your Family History Report

Your Name: __________________

Class: __________________

Ancestor’s Position in Your Family: (grandmother, father, uncle …) _____________________

___________________

Task: Read about your ancestor’s country in Britannica and write answers below. You can do two ancestors if you choose.

Country Name:

Capital City:

Language Spoken:

Population:

Go to “Articles & Media” to click “Full Article” to learn more about your ancestor’s country. Explore and read (listen). Use the space on the back of this paper to write any information that you find interesting.

____________________________

Second Lesson

Task: Inspiration

  • Download the image of the map of your ancestor’s country
  • Download the image of the flag of your ancestor’s country
  • Download an image that shows a place in your country
  • Insert images into Inspiration & connect them to the Name of your ancestor (center symbol)

Looking at the map(s), find the following and answer below:

                              Country 1 Country 2

Names of Bordering Countries:

Nearby Bodies of Water:

Names of Bordering Countries:

Nearby Bodies of Water:

____________________________

Third Lesson

Task: Inspiration

  • Make connector arrows between the center symbol and your ancestor and each image.
  • Choice Activity: What else do you know about your ancestor? Are there symbol images in the library that you could add to your diagram? If so, add them to your diagram and add connector arrows.
  • Choice Activity: Use the audio recording tool in Inspiration to tell more information about your ancestor.
  • Save your Inspiration file to the desktop.

 

Interdisciplinary Study with Google Lit Trips

stb

Google Lit Trips is a wonderful instructional mechanism that combines inquiry, analysis, and geography to study literature and allows students to learn from and tell stories about various subjects. An excellent expansion beyond focusing on just literature is provided by Ira Bickoff and Boelle Kuipers on their Sail the Book Web site.

Ira and Boelle constructed an extensive site incorporating Google Earth to tell stories from maritime literature while connecting to art, history, and ocean literacy. They provide text, images, hyperlinks, and Google Earth KMZ files to guide the reader through historical stories. It is an incredible example of using digital resources to engage readers and excite teachers to follow their model. Boelle and Ira include learning activities accessed through Google Earth. They also provide helpful video tutorials to help use the site’s resources.

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Parent Newsletters- Structure to Communicate Learning

Newsletter

Emailing or sending a paper newsletter about classroom events, student learning, parent requests, etc., is a weekly duty for most teachers- especially elementary teachers. Weekly newsletters and consistently updated class Web sites offer parents a portal to see into their child’s classroom. As with any visual communication, structure and design can make a difference in getting one’s message across.

As a PYP school at WIS, we use the Unit of Inquiry planner structure to communicate with our parents. I am enjoying the various constructs that PYP provides our students, teachers, and parents to help build a deeper understanding of the program of studies. The image above is a screenshot of one newsletter sent out by the Grade 1 teachers of a PYP school in Montgomery County, Maryland. They do an excellent job of using PYP language to help parents see what is being covered in the homeroom classroom and those of the special teachers. Notice some key PYP terms: Learning Profile, Unit of Inquiry, Central Idea, and Transdisciplinary skills. Using these terms also helps the students and parents have a common language to describe the learning that is taking place.

Here is a link to the full newsletter. Kudos to the College Gardens Elementary School teachers, as all the grade-level newsletters follow the same structure and form. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether one’s curriculum is PYP or not how and what we communicate to parents to support the home-school partnership.

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Student Designed Learning: “Somewhere in between…” Regular Classroom and Virtual

WP

Sophia Pink, an 11th grader at Washington International School (WIS) in the District of Columbia, wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post and created a video about her experiences last year when she left the regular classroom to design and experience her learning program. In the article, Sophia notes her experiences taking high school online courses from Johns Hopkins University and picking up classes from Udacity as she ventured into MOOCs. Sophia could also pursue her interests and create projects not part of the set 10th-grade curriculum at WIS.

Sophia missed the learning from collaborating with her WIS classmates, but she enjoyed having more control over how her days would run and the time spent on individual courses. She concludes that regular schools and online learning both have a place for students as “somewhere in between” the two make the most sense to her.

Being a self-directed and responsible learner was a big part of the admin supporting her and Sophia’s parents supporting Sophia’s self-designed learning program. Having choice, being able to control one’s time, and being allowed to pursue one’s interests are a big part of what we consistently hear schools should be doing for their students. It is important to note that some schools offer students experiences similar to Sophia’s.

It is nice to see that the leaders at my new school (I started this summer at WIS) so value students that they were open to supporting Sophia’s learning journey. The next step will be to see how we can offer a hybrid approach to our curriculum where more students take courses in and outside school while pursuing their interests.

Talking about authentic learning, writing an opinion article, and producing a video for a major newspaper are a couple of biggies when connecting one’s learning to the real world! Also, review an earlier post where I wrote about Sophia as an accomplished videographer.

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Scaffolding for Student-Led Conferences

The Alexandria Country Day Middle School students met with their parents last week to review their learning from the year. In preparation for the conferences, the 5th-grade students were given the following questions about our Portrait of a Graduate dispositions. The students spent time thinking about their learning and responding to the questions. Their teachers, Ms. Cook and Ms. Weaver arranged sessions for each student to practice with an adult in preparation for meeting with their parents. This was an excellent way to build on the scaffolding they already had in place with the questions listed below. The students typed up their responses to the questions and met with their teachers for feedback as they prepared for the conferences.

The 6th, 7th, and 8th graders create folios through our Haiku LMS. I wrote about our eFolio system in February, where a link is provided to notes and a draft version of the template used within Haiku. It can provide ideas for others reviewing their eFolio and student-led conference programs. We will soon be meeting at ACDS to do our review of these student reflection and goal-setting strategies.

______________________________

Independent Learner: Use three pieces of evidence from your work this year to describe how you have grown as an independent learner.

You should think about the following:

  • How did you solve problems or figure things out on your own?
  • How did you advocate for yourself if you needed something?
  • How did you organize yourself?
  • How did you motivate yourself?

Your response should include:

At least one entire paragraph. Consider using three (one for each piece of evidence.) Work from more than one class. Work from more than one trimester.

Look to reflect further on your strengths, weaknesses, and growth in this area.

 

Communicator: Use three pieces of evidence from your work this year to describe how you have grown as a communicator.

You should think about the following:

  • How have you communicated your learning this year?
  • How do you prefer to communicate your learning?
  • How was your message received?

Your response should include:

At least one entire paragraph. Consider using three (one for each piece of evidence.)

  • Work from more than one class.
  • Work from more than one trimester.
  • Work showing more than one type of communication (writing, speaking, VoiceThread, iMovie, Keynote, ScreenChomp, or other tools)

Look to reflect further on your strengths, weaknesses, and growth in this area.

 

Community Minded: Use three pieces of evidence from your work or activities this year to describe how you have grown as a community-minded individual.

You should think about the following:

  • What have you learned about your community (school, town, country, world) this year?
  • How did you act on this learning?
  • How would you like to act on it in the future?

Your response should include:

At least one entire paragraph. Consider using three (one for each piece of evidence.)

  • Work from more than one class or activity.
  • Work from more than one trimester.
  • Look to reflect further on your strengths, weaknesses, and growth in this area.

 

Balanced: Use three pieces of evidence from your work or activities this year to describe your work/life balance.

You should think about the following:

  • How do you balance your time between things you have to do and things you want to do?
  • Was there a time this year when you felt your balance was not right? How did it feel?
  • How is your current balance?
  • What strategies do you have to be balanced in the future?

Your response should include:

  • At least one entire paragraph. Consider using three (one for each piece of evidence.)
  • Work from more than one class or activity.
  • Work from more than one trimester.

Look to reflect further on your strengths, weaknesses, and growth in this area.

 

Constructivist Teaching and Learning

We talk a lot about curriculum-based technology integration on the Edtech Co-Op podcast. Note: The podcast is on a new site- http://edtechcoop.posthaven.com. We also have guests to share instructional and assessment strategies that guide students to construct meaning and construct their understanding. Our last two shows zeroed in on constructivism as we spoke with Stephan Anagnost of the International School of Curacao. Stephan describes the challenging but fruitful work of designing student-centered learning opportunities. If you have yet to listen to the two podcasts, do listen.

Here are a few more resources about constructivist learning opportunities.

My wife runs her high school’s Future Problem Solvers (FPS) club. One of my sons this year started a FPS team at his school. They attended the state competition this weekend. Both came home describing the incredible creativity and problem-solving as teams from across the state tackled the presented problem. Learn more about FPS and how you might start a chapter at your school. It can be a helpful model to add to your teaching toolkit.

Speaking of problem-solving, John Hunter just published a book about his World Peace Game. If you have yet to see his TED Talk, do look to check it out. The World Peace Game is all about students working together to problem solve and build understanding as they go through a series of prompts to find peace in an ongoing simulation game.

Virtual Tech Courses

Virtual learning is a topic we recently spoke to on the Edtech Co-Op podcast. The discussion reminded me of a talk many years ago with our high school instructional technologist at Hong Kong International School (HKIS). We discussed the computer programming course he taught. The context was a meeting of the instructional technologists from each of our four divisions about online learning as we had run a virtual school for a month in 2003 when SARS struck Hong Kong.

We were thinking about the power of the HKIS brand in Asia and our regional leadership for technology integration. The idea was to start offering fully online courses for HKIS students and interested students from around the region. While this idea was not implemented, it did bring us back to the computer science course and how it would be an excellent class to teach virtually. International schools used the Virtual High School, now called The VHS Collaborative, to provide courses when they needed more teachers or many students to run courses efficiently. It also would be easy to run a computer programming course in-house through our MyDragonnet learning management system.

Back to the present day, in recent chats with directors of technology from two leading independent schools in Washington, DC, we discussed where their respective schools are in offering online courses. There are many reasons for providing students access to virtual courses, but the question arose regarding how to offer them. Does one do them in-house or through a provider like The VHS CollaborativeK12, or the Online School for Girls? Several questions arose about how the courses would connect to the mission of the schools, who would teach the courses, whether virtual courses take the place of regular classes in the student’s schedule, etc. It was interesting for me as an instructional technologist to hear about the needs of the students and teachers to get me thinking about how to design the process of deciding how to offer virtual learning opportunities.

Connecting back to my experiences at HKIS, it became clear to me that one option for these schools would be to offer their technology and Information and Communication literacy (ICL) courses online instead of teaching them during the regular school day. The instructional technologists at each school have the skill set and content knowledge (i.e., TPACK) to design and deliver courses in either a hybrid or a fully online fashion. The schools could pilot this effort to meet not only the student’s learning needs but also a model for interested teachers how they might also provide virtual courses. It could be an easy first step towards providing virtual learning for each community.

Another thought is to build on the badge movement for virtual learning offerings. The instructional technologist, librarian, and other interested teachers could build mini-courses focused on specific skills. Examples could be learning how to use various apps on the iPad for student workflow and productivity, using apps for editing images and video, providing a mini course in sound design in presentations, etc. Students could earn badges to represent their certification in reaching the standards set for each mini-course. Instead of taking up time in their daily course schedule, the students could work independently through the schools’ learning management system and other online collaborative tools.

This line of thinking connects to what we are doing at Alexandria Country Day school, whereby the Fifth Grade provides “just in time” instruction with follow-up online tutorials for students to explore further how to use various apps and Web 2.0 tools. One of our science teachers, Sara Stein, looks to her students as learning partners when new apps are introduced to the class. The students use their ICL skills to find tutorials to self-teach and then provide guidance for other students during class meeting times.

This supports my belief that my job is to help each student build their ICL tool belt by the end of the Fourth Grade. While their ICL skills are far from complete, the students have the foundation skills and know how to find tutorials and experts among their co-learners to self-teach. This connects to constructing one’s personal learning system that empowers and skills students to use ICL to become more effective learners.

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