3.1 Classroom Management & Collaborative Learning
Candidates model and facilitate effective classroom management and collaborative learning strategies to maximize teacher and student use of digital tools and resources. (PSC 3.1/ISTE 3a)
Artifact: ISTE Lesson Plan/ Resources
Reflection:
I created this artifact in the course ITEC7430, Internet Tools in the Classroom. This involved the creation of an ISTE Lesson Plan, which incorporated research-based, student-centered strategies to address the learning needs of all students. The purpose of this artifact was to develop and implement a lesson plan outlining a student-centered learning task. For this particular lesson plan, I used the Web 2.0 tools Bubbl.us, Pebble Go, and Voicethread with my first grade students as they learned about the Westward Expansion with explorers Lewis and Clark. I used a NETS-S template for the lesson plan. This template required not only content standards relevant to my grade level, but also the NETS-S standards used in the lesson plan. It included standards addressed, lesson overview, essential questions, assessment, resources, instructional plan, management, differentiation, lesson closure, and final reflection.
The main emphasis of the lesson plan was on Common Core Social Studies Standards related to Lewis and Clark. Students brought minimal prior knowledge about the explorers Lewis and Clark as well as Sacagawea to the unit. To activate knowledge, I showed a www.BrainPopJr.com learning focused video on Lewis and Clark to the class. Throughout the unit, students learned to infer, generate questions on informational text, cite evidence to prove and justify their reasons about characters and events in Reading. In Social Studies, they specifically looked at the American Historical figures. In Writing, students participated in shared research projects by utilizing www.pebblego.com and reported on their knowledge by producing informational text. The students completed a graphic organizer after they gained concrete knowledge on Lewis and Clark. They transferred the new learning that focused on the main topic and key details of informational text to into a bubbl.us concept map, located at www.bubbl.us. Finally, students were expected to demonstrate their knowledge through learning tasks utilizing voicethread.com. Within Voicethread, students had pictures available of various images of Lewis and Clark as well as Sacagawea. They worked in groups of 2-3 to comment on an image of choice of Lewis and Clark/ Sacageawea to answer questions about key details in a text. The question they answered depended on their ability level and need. Students were exposed to the prompts in small groups. In the groups, students indicated which prompt they wanted to respond to and were assigned pairs based on similar responses. The pairs were expected to participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners with in the classroom setting to discuss contributions of Lewis and Clark using Voicethread.
The lesson plan demonstrates mastery of Standard 3.1 because it involved modeling and facilitating effective classroom management and collaborative learning to allow for the maximization of digital tools and resources. The ISTE Lesson Plan gave me the opportunity to implement a technology that was yet to be used with students to facilitate an integrated learning experience. This provided students with the opportunity to utilize the school’s laptops on one of the accessible laptop carts to guide their learning. Classroom management was challenged in this situation, which provided me with reflective learning experiences as an educator. I learned I needed to set boundaries and initiate specific steps with the tools prior to implementing them. These digital tools and resources allowed the collaborative learning strategies identified in the lesson plan to be facilitated. The lesson plan directly has students working together to engage in critical thinking opportunities to guide their learning. It provided learning strategies for implementing it successfully into a classroom environment. Classroom management was an important component, to allow for proper flow of the lesson and student learning. The initial completion of this lesson within my own classroom allowed for me to provide a model for other teachers, as I shared the lesson with my grade level. This allowed them to seamlessly implement the lesson in their own classroom, which promoted maximized teacher and student use of the digital tools and resources.
From completing this artifact, I learned about classroom management in relation to digital tools. As it holds true for man teachers, I have continuously been challenged as an educator with classroom management. When implementing digital tools, classroom management is necessary and should be planned before the teaching begins. Since I only have 3 computers in my classroom, and the computer lab can only be utilized once per week for thirty minutes per session, I knew the best option for me would be to utilize laptops. While these are great learning tools, the particular ones available to the students and teachers at my school are beginning to show their age and have many technical issues. Multiple laptops did not work and I had to think on my feet to manage the situation and control the classroom. Since cooperative learning experiences were encouraged in the lesson plan, students were encouraged to merely share digital tools, but I would have preferred individualized student access. One aspect that I would improve in this artifact would be the nature of recording the Voice Thread. While this particular tool is very beneficial in the process of students mastering Speaking and Listening standards, I found it difficult to manage with 24 students and 1 teacher. I implemented it during our “Daily 5” time where students independently worked on relevant learning tasks. Students seemingly needed to problem solve often and issues often arose. For example, recordings sometimes did not work, the student would navigate to another webpage and required problem solving, etc. I would likely enlist the help of another adult to facilitate student learning with this tool in this lesson if I were to complete it again.
The work that went into developing the ISTE Lesson Plan impacted student learning, As previously mentioned, I shared this project with other educators to use with their students as well as used with my own students. This artifact was a lesson plan that directly relates to applicable standards, so students were actively engaged in the learning process though the implementation of this lesson plan. The evaluation of student learning can be assessed through the use of the project rubric and comparison of student knowledge to the grade level standards. The impact can be assessed through student learning over time.
I created this artifact in the course ITEC7430, Internet Tools in the Classroom. This involved the creation of an ISTE Lesson Plan, which incorporated research-based, student-centered strategies to address the learning needs of all students. The purpose of this artifact was to develop and implement a lesson plan outlining a student-centered learning task. For this particular lesson plan, I used the Web 2.0 tools Bubbl.us, Pebble Go, and Voicethread with my first grade students as they learned about the Westward Expansion with explorers Lewis and Clark. I used a NETS-S template for the lesson plan. This template required not only content standards relevant to my grade level, but also the NETS-S standards used in the lesson plan. It included standards addressed, lesson overview, essential questions, assessment, resources, instructional plan, management, differentiation, lesson closure, and final reflection.
The main emphasis of the lesson plan was on Common Core Social Studies Standards related to Lewis and Clark. Students brought minimal prior knowledge about the explorers Lewis and Clark as well as Sacagawea to the unit. To activate knowledge, I showed a www.BrainPopJr.com learning focused video on Lewis and Clark to the class. Throughout the unit, students learned to infer, generate questions on informational text, cite evidence to prove and justify their reasons about characters and events in Reading. In Social Studies, they specifically looked at the American Historical figures. In Writing, students participated in shared research projects by utilizing www.pebblego.com and reported on their knowledge by producing informational text. The students completed a graphic organizer after they gained concrete knowledge on Lewis and Clark. They transferred the new learning that focused on the main topic and key details of informational text to into a bubbl.us concept map, located at www.bubbl.us. Finally, students were expected to demonstrate their knowledge through learning tasks utilizing voicethread.com. Within Voicethread, students had pictures available of various images of Lewis and Clark as well as Sacagawea. They worked in groups of 2-3 to comment on an image of choice of Lewis and Clark/ Sacageawea to answer questions about key details in a text. The question they answered depended on their ability level and need. Students were exposed to the prompts in small groups. In the groups, students indicated which prompt they wanted to respond to and were assigned pairs based on similar responses. The pairs were expected to participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners with in the classroom setting to discuss contributions of Lewis and Clark using Voicethread.
The lesson plan demonstrates mastery of Standard 3.1 because it involved modeling and facilitating effective classroom management and collaborative learning to allow for the maximization of digital tools and resources. The ISTE Lesson Plan gave me the opportunity to implement a technology that was yet to be used with students to facilitate an integrated learning experience. This provided students with the opportunity to utilize the school’s laptops on one of the accessible laptop carts to guide their learning. Classroom management was challenged in this situation, which provided me with reflective learning experiences as an educator. I learned I needed to set boundaries and initiate specific steps with the tools prior to implementing them. These digital tools and resources allowed the collaborative learning strategies identified in the lesson plan to be facilitated. The lesson plan directly has students working together to engage in critical thinking opportunities to guide their learning. It provided learning strategies for implementing it successfully into a classroom environment. Classroom management was an important component, to allow for proper flow of the lesson and student learning. The initial completion of this lesson within my own classroom allowed for me to provide a model for other teachers, as I shared the lesson with my grade level. This allowed them to seamlessly implement the lesson in their own classroom, which promoted maximized teacher and student use of the digital tools and resources.
From completing this artifact, I learned about classroom management in relation to digital tools. As it holds true for man teachers, I have continuously been challenged as an educator with classroom management. When implementing digital tools, classroom management is necessary and should be planned before the teaching begins. Since I only have 3 computers in my classroom, and the computer lab can only be utilized once per week for thirty minutes per session, I knew the best option for me would be to utilize laptops. While these are great learning tools, the particular ones available to the students and teachers at my school are beginning to show their age and have many technical issues. Multiple laptops did not work and I had to think on my feet to manage the situation and control the classroom. Since cooperative learning experiences were encouraged in the lesson plan, students were encouraged to merely share digital tools, but I would have preferred individualized student access. One aspect that I would improve in this artifact would be the nature of recording the Voice Thread. While this particular tool is very beneficial in the process of students mastering Speaking and Listening standards, I found it difficult to manage with 24 students and 1 teacher. I implemented it during our “Daily 5” time where students independently worked on relevant learning tasks. Students seemingly needed to problem solve often and issues often arose. For example, recordings sometimes did not work, the student would navigate to another webpage and required problem solving, etc. I would likely enlist the help of another adult to facilitate student learning with this tool in this lesson if I were to complete it again.
The work that went into developing the ISTE Lesson Plan impacted student learning, As previously mentioned, I shared this project with other educators to use with their students as well as used with my own students. This artifact was a lesson plan that directly relates to applicable standards, so students were actively engaged in the learning process though the implementation of this lesson plan. The evaluation of student learning can be assessed through the use of the project rubric and comparison of student knowledge to the grade level standards. The impact can be assessed through student learning over time.