2.3 Authentic Learning
Candidates model and facilitate the use of digital tools and resources to engage students in authentic learning experiences. (PSC 2.3/ISTE 2c)
Artifact: Engaged Learning Project (ITEC 7400)
Reflection:Creating the Engaged Learning (EL) Project was a requirement of ITEC 7400, 21st Century Teaching and Learning. The purpose of the EL Project was to develop an extended learning experience for students that models appropriate and innovative uses of technology to support Engaged Learning while meeting a Level of Technology Implementation (LoTi) of 4a or above, which requires higher levels of thinking as defined by Bloom’s Taxonomy. This EL Project focused on standards set by College Board for Advanced Placement French Language and Culture Students, specifically that students will engage in interpersonal communications.
Creating this artifact allowed me to demonstrate mastery of Standard 2.3, which says that “candidates model and facilitate the use of digital tools and resources to engage students in authentic learning experiences.” In today’s digital society, communication happens much more frequently via email than it does in a face-to-face context. Therefore, learning appropriate forms of electronic communication is a valuable tool for students who regularly employ extremely informal language in all communicative contexts. This artifact served the dual purpose of meeting the standards for interpersonal communication and relating those standards to skills that students need beyond the classroom.
At the time that the Engaged Learning Project was developed, the system in place for student blogging was clunky, unintuitive, and limited to members of the class. Since that time, I have found better ways to simulate blogging, such as creating a discussion board on our online learning management system with a thread for each student. This would allow them to simulate blogging by writing longer posts and to maintain the element of interactivity by commenting on each other’s posts. There are also better online resources available to students for true blogging such as Weebly and WordPress that would allow the project to reach higher levels of engagement by allowing the blogs to be published for the outside community. If I were to recreate this project another time, I would design it in such a way that students would begin by writing emails searching for information related to one of the themes to prepare them for their eventual cultural comparison project. They would then respond to someone who was asking for information about the theme that they had chosen for a previous assignment, the persuasive essay. In this way, students could act as their own “outside experts.” Additionally, it would help to reinforce the idea that the themes and assignments are interconnected.
In my new role as an Instructional Technology Specialist, I have worked with one of our Advanced Placement Literature & Composition teachers to implement a similar project in her class. We first met to discuss the merits of various blogging platforms and some ideas for how she could "collect" blog assignments from students. We also looked at the AP Literature standards and rubrics from College Board to guide student writing, as well as NETS-S standards for technology use by students, and designed a year-long blogging project for students that would focus on reflective analysis of literature and current events. Students would have a variety of blogging platforms from which to choose, giving them variety, choice, and autonomy over the visual design and publishing settings of their posts. Students were also able to use the internal blogging feature available in our district learning management system if they preferred to keep their posts private and share only with the teacher and peer evaluators. The teacher, who had been resistant to the idea of moving away from paper journals kept in composition notebooks, felt that the project was so successful in the first year and so popular with students that she decided to expand it to her Honors 10th Grade Literature students and continue on. It is now 2016 and she is in her third year of the project. Some students have continued their reflective blogging experience even into their college literature classes, saying that the process helps them to better understand and explain the importance of what they read.
Creating this artifact allowed me to demonstrate mastery of Standard 2.3, which says that “candidates model and facilitate the use of digital tools and resources to engage students in authentic learning experiences.” In today’s digital society, communication happens much more frequently via email than it does in a face-to-face context. Therefore, learning appropriate forms of electronic communication is a valuable tool for students who regularly employ extremely informal language in all communicative contexts. This artifact served the dual purpose of meeting the standards for interpersonal communication and relating those standards to skills that students need beyond the classroom.
At the time that the Engaged Learning Project was developed, the system in place for student blogging was clunky, unintuitive, and limited to members of the class. Since that time, I have found better ways to simulate blogging, such as creating a discussion board on our online learning management system with a thread for each student. This would allow them to simulate blogging by writing longer posts and to maintain the element of interactivity by commenting on each other’s posts. There are also better online resources available to students for true blogging such as Weebly and WordPress that would allow the project to reach higher levels of engagement by allowing the blogs to be published for the outside community. If I were to recreate this project another time, I would design it in such a way that students would begin by writing emails searching for information related to one of the themes to prepare them for their eventual cultural comparison project. They would then respond to someone who was asking for information about the theme that they had chosen for a previous assignment, the persuasive essay. In this way, students could act as their own “outside experts.” Additionally, it would help to reinforce the idea that the themes and assignments are interconnected.
In my new role as an Instructional Technology Specialist, I have worked with one of our Advanced Placement Literature & Composition teachers to implement a similar project in her class. We first met to discuss the merits of various blogging platforms and some ideas for how she could "collect" blog assignments from students. We also looked at the AP Literature standards and rubrics from College Board to guide student writing, as well as NETS-S standards for technology use by students, and designed a year-long blogging project for students that would focus on reflective analysis of literature and current events. Students would have a variety of blogging platforms from which to choose, giving them variety, choice, and autonomy over the visual design and publishing settings of their posts. Students were also able to use the internal blogging feature available in our district learning management system if they preferred to keep their posts private and share only with the teacher and peer evaluators. The teacher, who had been resistant to the idea of moving away from paper journals kept in composition notebooks, felt that the project was so successful in the first year and so popular with students that she decided to expand it to her Honors 10th Grade Literature students and continue on. It is now 2016 and she is in her third year of the project. Some students have continued their reflective blogging experience even into their college literature classes, saying that the process helps them to better understand and explain the importance of what they read.