Eyes on the World, Feet on the Ground
Earlier in the year, I decided it was time to have my philosophy, mission, vision statements, and core values set out in writing. With continuous professional development and learning, these principles will be fluid and change over time.
At present, I do see a classroom of engaged and inclusive learners, and I am continuing to work out on how to create a more collaborative environment that is viable during Covid times. Learning progress is moving much slower due to less physical collaboration (small group/pair work). Students just aren't "getting it" when they are having to trouble shoot alone.
What will the 21st Century Classroom look like?
The 21st century classroom I envision will always involve ways to facilitate critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity.
I have been very fortunate to be in a school where students have the ability to have a device available to them. We have loaner iPad carts and COWS. I have collaborated with my cohort teacher to have a class set of iPads every other week, while still having a half set available to me all the time. As the students have their own One Drive account, they are able to save and access any pertinent work throughout their school career in the district. In our SLLC, we have many loose parts and STEM materials available. Earlier in the year, we had keva planks and I individually bagged planks for students to work on challenges. Students will be working on making traditional Sto:lo tools out of recyclable materials, so this will be a nice introduction to some of the loose parts available in our SLLC.
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| image from kevaplanks.com |
Design Considerations for Final Vision
I have been catching myself doing this a lot. While students are working, I will ask them "Why are we doing this?". Yes, I am prepared for the disappointment. My grade 3 students often do not know why they are working on assignments at school. The pleasers will give you an answer like "to make my brain grow/learn" and it is true, but how? I would like to explore the explicit process of learning for individual students, reflecting on this process in a documented way, as well as have students learn more about themselves, what drives their engagement and motivation. In a way, I would like to help facilitate their working philosophy, mission, and vision statements for their own learning.
I still intend on using MyBlueprint, a digital portfolio program designed for the B.C. Curriculum's core competencies in mind. The program is vast and complex, but I will focusing on the "About Me" section. Then move on to School competencies like communication thinking, and personal/social goals as well as their personal goals.
Who is my target audience?
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| image from 123rf.com |
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| image from in.pinterest.com |
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| image from pinterest.com |
At the moment, the target audiences are students, their families, and the other grade 3 teachers I am collaborating with. In the future, I would hope this exploration can support other teachers that are wanting to use digital portfolios for teaching self-awareness and metacognitive skills.
Potential Ideas
I have been catching myself doing this a lot. While students are working, I will ask them "Why are we doing this?". Yes, I am prepared for the disappointment. My grade 3 students often do not know why they are working on assignments at school. The pleasers will give you an answer like "to make my brain grow/learn" and it is true, but how? I would like to explore the explicit process of learning for individual students, reflecting on this process in a documented way, as well as have students learn more about themselves, what drives their engagement and motivation.
Hourigan and Quinn have compiled timely articles that focus on learning in the digital classroom in their book entitled "Handbook On Digital Learning". Some interesting articles and chapters discuss narrated photographs with multimodal opportunities with digital tools, personalised learning with information technology, and discoveries from an Irish pilot project using EUFolio, a classrom ePortfolio. If you are a UBC student, this text is available for PDF download (See below in "works cited" for link).
Assessment Ideas
Students have completed a self-assessment questionnaire using emojis. I plan on using it in June to compare their responses. This is where I am having some challenges on finding evidence of growth for students and will be using my PLM (other grade 3 teachers and MBP leads in the district) to strengthen this area. Formative assessments, using exit slips, class discussions, and small group or one-to-one check-ins have been some ways I have brainstormed to support this. For the next collaboration meeting, I am hoping to get a bank of guiding questions that can give us more insight to the value of explicit teaching of self-awareness and metacognitive skills.
Digital Artifact ideas
My vision for the future would be to have students in my classroom use a digital portfolio like MBP to map their learning throughout the year, reflect on their growth, and set goals for future grades - see the bigger picture beyond the grade 3 classroom. After working out the bugs, I would definitely like to have a series of lesson plans, alongside quality literature (We have been BIG on read alouds this year and I would like to incorporate this) available for teachers with sample student work. We often do this in collaboration in our grade groups where we set a goal (organizing writing/using specialized vocabulary etc.) and work together to implement the collaborated activity/mini-lesson together. Then we set aside some time to compare work, develop a rubric, what we would think is emerging, developing, and proficient using examples, and revise as needed for the following term.
Final Considerations
How does exploring MBP self-awareness tools help students have their eyes on the world and feet on the ground? Our progress with the program will be on a bi-weekly time schedule, so this gives students time to input, discuss with their peers, respond to teacher feedback (teachers are able to respond with stickers, text, video, audio), and meaningfully reflect will all the resources visually organized in their portfolio. As for eyes on the world, students are also able to explore career possibilities within the program and correlate how their learning now may affect their learning in the future.
Works Cited
MyBlueprint.ca. (n.d.). Retrieved November 9, 2020, from https://myblueprint.ca/
Common Sense Media. (2020, April 01). Introduction to the 4 Cs. Retrieved November 14, 2020, from https://www.commonsense.org/education/videos/introduction-to-the-4-cs
Marcus-Quinn, A., & Hourigan, T. (Eds.). (2017). Handbook on digital learning for k-12 schools. Switzerland: SPRINGER from https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/book/10.1007%2F978-3-319-33808-8#about
Shelby County Schools. "Inside the 21st Century Classroom." YouTube, 14 Nov. 2020, https://youtu.be/zcvcLuVtXU8
You are exploring some good ideas here that will lead you to your final vision project. In terms of our course requirements, you will want to consider a digital artifact for your vision. For example, if your vision of the future is to have students use the self-awareness tools in MBP what will your digital artifact look like? Will it be a video tutorial for other teachers? A How-To-Guide? A series of lesson plans? What will you create that demonstrates and shares your learning? How will you share this with others? How could they contribute? I am eager to see where your creativity takes you!
ReplyDeleteThanks Professor McNee! I revised my blog post to include what my digital artifact will look like.
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