We have covered a lot of important concepts in the past couple of weeks: telecommunication, collaboration, assessment, and evaluation. All are integral to creating powerful IBL/PBL projects. Each week has given me food for thought and added tools to my tool belt. I have already started embedding these concepts into my practice.
In week 7 we covered telecommunication and collaboration. With today’s advances in technology, students are no longer stuck learning only within the school’s walls. They can now connect to other students around the world or with an expert in a specific field. These connections can be very powerful. Students start to see bigger pictures, see their real world potential, and are more engaged in their learning. There are some great examples of this happening all over the world that we got to explore. I really was blown away when looking at some of the projects on the Google Science Fair webpage. These kids were inspired by real world problems and situations and they did something incredible with that challenge. One group tackled the world hunger problem by trying to identify helpful bacteria that will make food grow quickly. Another student wanted to help his grandfather with Alzheimer's disease so he created lightweight motion sensors that help caregivers keep the elderly safe. They created something that can change the world!
This was inspiring for me as a teacher because I wanted to create a situation in my classroom that will let kids explore their own interests and find issues that are important to them. Maybe this could be a great way to work with the guidance counselor when 6th grade has to do their community service projects. We could make it more powerful than their normal bake sale to raise money for a good cause.
Another topic that we explored on week 7 was webquests. This learning technique was all the rage a decade ago and it had some real benefits to it, namely digital inquiry skills. Unfortunately, I do not think that they are being used as much any more. Exploring these old webquests was very interesting. Most did seem very dated, mainly because of layout and limitations with online capabilities of that time. It was really good to explore one and decide how to improve it to fit today’s 21st century criteria because the concept and idea behind it was still good. It just needed a facelift!
This was incredibly helpful for me because I’ve been thinking about how to effectively teach my students digital inquiry skills and have them practice them. My elementary age students need some instruction on how to find information on a webpage and digital navigation. Webquests let students use pre-determined webpages to gain the needed information. They can practice the information gathering on a teacher approved site. This is exactly what I need! I’ve been thinking about using a webquest, but I couldn’t find any that were appropriate now. This activity helped me see how to use these old webquest and adapting them to what I need right now. I’m going to be using one starting next week with my 5th graders when we explore the myths and truths of the first thanksgiving.
Week 8 we covered assessment and feedback. The voicethread was a really nice way to interact with the material and my classmates. I enjoyed reading, listening, and watching all of this important information. One big idea that really jumped out at me was that assessment should not be about entering a grade in the grade book, but should be away for students to transfer knowledge to a new situation and to receive helpful, constructive feedback from instructors. Assessments are informative. They inform the teacher how they are doing with their instruction and they inform students whether they get it and what needs to be done further to be successful. They don’t need to be judgmental. Yong Zhao’s point was that standardize testing is killing the creativity and ingenuity in our students. Assessment should be more about feedback rather than data.
I don’t give grades in my library classes so I feel I don’t have to worry about the negative effects of assessments or really that I’m doing it in an ineffective way. That being said, I do assess kids. They might not know that I am doing it. I see if my students can do the skills that I am teaching them. I identify misunderstandings and misconceptions. I determine what students need extra instruction or accommodations. I do it to inform my own instruction and to get information about my students that will help me in the future. The part that I really need to change about this system is the communication of these “assessments” with my students. I need to give them feedback. They need to know where they are and what they can do to improve. The biggest hurdle for this is that I see over 300 kids. Giving each and every one of them authentic and timely feedback is daunting. To get myself started, I started using Google Classroom with 6th grade students. This way I could have a platform to communicate goals, expectations, and feedback to my students. There are definitely some things that I hope Google improves, but so far, it has helped with my goal of giving better feedback.
Week 9 was about evaluation. We picked out a PBL project created by someone else and evaluated it based on criteria we pick out ourselves. I picked out a PBL project that I could use with my 3rd grader teachers when they teach coordinates in math. Also it would work well with 3rd grade because they maintain the school garden. I used a rubric I found on the Buck Institute’s website. I really liked the eight elements that it identified for a ideal PBL project. They are a focus on significant content, development of 21st Century skills, engagement in in-depth inquiry, organized around a driving question, establishes a need to know, encourage choice and voice, incorporates critique and revision, and includes a public audience. Using this rubric, I was really able to evaluate the PBL project that I choose. I could identify its strengths and weaknesses and see how I could improve it. This was extremely helpful in that I can definitely use the math gardening project with 3rd grade and I was able to think about the rubric when I started to brainstorm ideas for my own final project for this class.
The past three weeks have been helpful in both developing a final project for this class but also to improve my everyday instruction in my classroom/library. How will I get my students to collaborate and communicate with the world at large? How will I assess my students and give them timely, authentic feedback? How will I know that I created a powerful project for my students to explore to gain knowledge and skills? These questions were answered and more in this class to help me become a better teacher now and in the future.
In week 7 we covered telecommunication and collaboration. With today’s advances in technology, students are no longer stuck learning only within the school’s walls. They can now connect to other students around the world or with an expert in a specific field. These connections can be very powerful. Students start to see bigger pictures, see their real world potential, and are more engaged in their learning. There are some great examples of this happening all over the world that we got to explore. I really was blown away when looking at some of the projects on the Google Science Fair webpage. These kids were inspired by real world problems and situations and they did something incredible with that challenge. One group tackled the world hunger problem by trying to identify helpful bacteria that will make food grow quickly. Another student wanted to help his grandfather with Alzheimer's disease so he created lightweight motion sensors that help caregivers keep the elderly safe. They created something that can change the world!
This was inspiring for me as a teacher because I wanted to create a situation in my classroom that will let kids explore their own interests and find issues that are important to them. Maybe this could be a great way to work with the guidance counselor when 6th grade has to do their community service projects. We could make it more powerful than their normal bake sale to raise money for a good cause.
Another topic that we explored on week 7 was webquests. This learning technique was all the rage a decade ago and it had some real benefits to it, namely digital inquiry skills. Unfortunately, I do not think that they are being used as much any more. Exploring these old webquests was very interesting. Most did seem very dated, mainly because of layout and limitations with online capabilities of that time. It was really good to explore one and decide how to improve it to fit today’s 21st century criteria because the concept and idea behind it was still good. It just needed a facelift!
This was incredibly helpful for me because I’ve been thinking about how to effectively teach my students digital inquiry skills and have them practice them. My elementary age students need some instruction on how to find information on a webpage and digital navigation. Webquests let students use pre-determined webpages to gain the needed information. They can practice the information gathering on a teacher approved site. This is exactly what I need! I’ve been thinking about using a webquest, but I couldn’t find any that were appropriate now. This activity helped me see how to use these old webquest and adapting them to what I need right now. I’m going to be using one starting next week with my 5th graders when we explore the myths and truths of the first thanksgiving.
Week 8 we covered assessment and feedback. The voicethread was a really nice way to interact with the material and my classmates. I enjoyed reading, listening, and watching all of this important information. One big idea that really jumped out at me was that assessment should not be about entering a grade in the grade book, but should be away for students to transfer knowledge to a new situation and to receive helpful, constructive feedback from instructors. Assessments are informative. They inform the teacher how they are doing with their instruction and they inform students whether they get it and what needs to be done further to be successful. They don’t need to be judgmental. Yong Zhao’s point was that standardize testing is killing the creativity and ingenuity in our students. Assessment should be more about feedback rather than data.
I don’t give grades in my library classes so I feel I don’t have to worry about the negative effects of assessments or really that I’m doing it in an ineffective way. That being said, I do assess kids. They might not know that I am doing it. I see if my students can do the skills that I am teaching them. I identify misunderstandings and misconceptions. I determine what students need extra instruction or accommodations. I do it to inform my own instruction and to get information about my students that will help me in the future. The part that I really need to change about this system is the communication of these “assessments” with my students. I need to give them feedback. They need to know where they are and what they can do to improve. The biggest hurdle for this is that I see over 300 kids. Giving each and every one of them authentic and timely feedback is daunting. To get myself started, I started using Google Classroom with 6th grade students. This way I could have a platform to communicate goals, expectations, and feedback to my students. There are definitely some things that I hope Google improves, but so far, it has helped with my goal of giving better feedback.
Week 9 was about evaluation. We picked out a PBL project created by someone else and evaluated it based on criteria we pick out ourselves. I picked out a PBL project that I could use with my 3rd grader teachers when they teach coordinates in math. Also it would work well with 3rd grade because they maintain the school garden. I used a rubric I found on the Buck Institute’s website. I really liked the eight elements that it identified for a ideal PBL project. They are a focus on significant content, development of 21st Century skills, engagement in in-depth inquiry, organized around a driving question, establishes a need to know, encourage choice and voice, incorporates critique and revision, and includes a public audience. Using this rubric, I was really able to evaluate the PBL project that I choose. I could identify its strengths and weaknesses and see how I could improve it. This was extremely helpful in that I can definitely use the math gardening project with 3rd grade and I was able to think about the rubric when I started to brainstorm ideas for my own final project for this class.
The past three weeks have been helpful in both developing a final project for this class but also to improve my everyday instruction in my classroom/library. How will I get my students to collaborate and communicate with the world at large? How will I assess my students and give them timely, authentic feedback? How will I know that I created a powerful project for my students to explore to gain knowledge and skills? These questions were answered and more in this class to help me become a better teacher now and in the future.
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