Reflection Module 5b

This module has helped me think about self-directed learners and the role of differentiation in the following ways

I have a very involved plan for my Project Based Lesson and I can see where specific and direct instructions would be needed for students with special needs. This blog post explains what I would like to do for those students. I will discuss accommodations for students learning english as their second language, students with learning disabilities, and gifted students.

Nonnative Speakers

These students are one's who are learning English as their second language. Students who are learning a new language and at the same time learning complex biology concepts, have an extreme disadvantage. But, with assistive technologies, many of these struggles can be overcome. I have seen google translate work well for one of my Japanese speaking students. At times, I have translated powerpoint text from the slides to Japanese using google translate. This is definitely something I would like to use for my unit plan. Another specific thing I can do in my PBL is to constantly check for understanding. I will ask questions such as "Do you understand the instructions?" or "Does that make sense to you?" I would also like to give the student a copy of the CFQs in their native language. This might clear up some major communication issues.

Gifted/Talented Students

For these students, I want to make sure that I keep them engaged. I might offer them a more difficult task for their project. I might give these students the option of creating a movie instead of a presentation. This might allow the gifted students to have more of an open-ended approach, which would satisfy the higher order thinking that they crave. I would direct students to websites that have more of a scientific literature approach. These would pose more of a challenge for them to read, but at the same time the knowledge would enrich their project. Careful placement of gifted students is key to keeping the students engaged in the lesson. I would make sure that the student or students isn't in a group that requires too much of a load, meaning the student needs to be in a group that balances the work well.

Special Needs Students

Whether students have hearing impairments, visual impairments, reading impairments, physical disabilities or learning disabilities, all these students need a fair chance to learn no matter what their disability. Here are some accommodations I could use them:

• Redirecting students if they become off task
• Make sure to include prior knowledge activities to help students relate to the topic
• · Ask the students to repeat the instructions back to the instructor
• · Give students with speech imparities voice software
• · Provide students with graphic organizers with their thoughts for their own project
• · Students with visual imparities may use magnification options for their computers
• Dictation for students who have trouble writing

I feel like these accommodation is an essential part of my Unit Plan. Now you have a look into my Unit plan accommodations. I will not only use some of these strategies at the same time, but I will make sure that I use some of them for my other students, because they might benefit from these. Assistive technology is found everywhere. They are also found built into your computer, or maybe it is a device that assists the student navigate on the computer, such as a joy stick. I hope this plan will allow me as an educator to become more self-aware of students with learning challenges.

Reflection Module 5a

This module has helped me think about student-centered assessment in the following ways

Student Feedback

I learned that students have an active role in assessment in a student-centered classroom. I have completed projects in my class before, but I can't say that students were involved in the feedback process. I think I can see how this would benefit my students. If they can receive some peer feedback during and after the project, they can see another's point-of-view rather than their teacher's.

Challenge

A challenge that I will be facing is not developing an assessment plan that works for all students. This seems like an impossible task, but I will use the tools that I have gained from this module to help me. Student feedback and meaningful learning will be my focus on this project.

I must say that I completely failed the formative assessment in this module. On reflecting on how I assess higher order thinking, I can't say that I do a very good job. I know I have students working on activities to help them master a concept, but I'm not sure how much higher order thinking is taking place. I certainly need to work on how I assess students in this way.

My Ideas of Assessment

I have found some great resources through the Intel Education eReader. I think these assessments are just as helpful to the students as it would be for me. The checklist I found was great. It shows how students go through the steps of the scientific process. There were also conference questions that would be a great guide for me to use for students to see where they are in their project and give them feedback on what they need to work on. There was also a great rubric that can be given to students so they may see what is acceptable in their project.

What does my Assessment Plan look like?

The Assessment Planning table really helped me find and create some great ways to assess my student learning throughout the learning process. Here are some of the tools I will use:

• Critical thinking Checklist
• Diseased Ecosystem graphic organizer 
• Prior Knowledge Journal
• Conference Questions with groups
• Final Product Rubric
• Scoring guide

Final Thoughts

I have had concerns in the past about how I would assess student learning in a project based lesson. This activity has shown me some strategies and tools I can use to do just that. So much of my fears on project based learning are how will students receive a grade? What will I add to the grade book when students are finished with a project like this? I am still struggling with this, but now I have some great ways to assess my students.

Module 4 Reflection

Here are my thoughts on student samples and how I can assess and support student learning using technology.

Here is the Essential Question for our course this semester:

How can technology be used most effectively to support and assess student learning?

Students use technology everyday because it is a part of their lives. I believe we can make learning much more meaningful to students if we use their strengths. Technology is definitely a strength for the majority of students in schools today. Allowing the students to use technology as a learning tool opens the door for more meaningful learning. I think about my project-based lesson and try to imagine how it would have been without the use of technology. My students' projects would be limited to what they could find in a text book. But, by allowing students to use the endless sources and communication that is available through technology, my students can produce a product that is worth something to them.

Technology can be used for collaborative communication with google hangouts or google documents. We can use technology that allows students to create a multimedia project that expresses a student's own perspective on a topic. Technology is a great source for students to gather information and organize it by using websites like Symbaloo. One additional way technology can be used is to keep students on task and focused. This can be done by using online checklists, providing peer feedback, and by teacher comments on blogs.

I also believe that learning is not all about the technology. In order for technology to be effective, teachers must identify what technology tools will be the most useful in a particular project. We must allow students to be creative and express themselves in different ways. Technology is great for this, but we don't have to use technology exclusively. There are many ways that technology can be used in a project-based lesson that are used for support of the project development instead of the main focus.

When planning my student sample, I really had a hard time picking what the sample should be. Should I have a presentation that shows a summary of the student's findings or a news article that explains the students findings as a publication. I decided that the presentation would be the most appropriate choice, since the students assume the roles of scientists. This would give them more of an authentic experience presenting their findings to the community instead of adding an article in a newspaper.

I also quickly realized that I must keep the project open enough to where the different groups have different products, but there are clear expectations as to what should be included in their presentations. I'm still trying to find the best way to relay those expectations to my students, so that is a work in progress. I need to make sure that my students include our Curriculum-Framing Questions with answers in their presentation. I have already changed some of my content questions because of my student sample. I also want my students to add the objectives to this presentation so they know what they are expected to know by the end of this project.

Here are my 21st Century Skills I hope to cover in my project-based lesson:

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
Leadership and Responsibility
Productivity and Accountability
Communication and Collaboration

I believe that using groups and asking the groups to present their findings will cover these 21st Century Skills. The students must think critically in order to design a response plan to eradicate a disease. The students will assume the leadership role as a scientist, explaining and teaching the community. The students will be held accountable with checklists and understanding checks throughout the project. The students will communicate with one another and come up with the best solution for their disease response plan.

Module 2 Reflection

This module has helped me think about using standards, CFQs, or formative assessment in the following ways…

Creating Meaningful Questions-"CFQ"

The activities in the module have definitely made me think differently about project-based learning. I believe I had about 3 different drafts of my essential question for my unit. Creating meaningful questions is essential to the whole frame of my project-based unit. I learned that the best way to make my project meaningful was to think about the students in the community and use open-ended questioning. The Interactive Learning Program helped me identify the correct types of questions I should have. In my unit plan, I have the following categories of curriculum framing questions (CFQs).

Essential Question

Of all the CFQs, this was by far the most difficult for me. Creating a meaningful essential question reminded me of how scientists must question things. In the scientific method, a purpose for the experiment must be established from the very beginning. Creating this lesson is no different. There must be a purpose to the students learning. I learned that creating this type of question should be open-ended, but at the same time it needs to be specific to the learner. 

Unit Questions

Unit questions are much easier for me to brainstorm and many of the drafts for my essential question became my unit questions. Still, these questions are open-ended and are created to help answer the essential question. In my unit plan, I have four unit questions so far. Again, it is still difficult for me to create open-ended questions that are meaningful to students. These questions are still very important to frame your project and base activities around. 

Content Questions

I consider these questions the "Need to know" for students to be successful in their project. These questions can be answered with definite answers, unlike the essential or unit questions. Some examples of these for my projects are:

What is an ecosystem?

What are the effects a disease may have on a species?

What are factors that could be fragile in an ecosystem?

In what biome is the ecosystem located?

Keeping Learning Focused and Structured 

As a second year teacher, I find it difficult to connect a learning goal to the students' interests. A major goal of mine as a teacher is to make learning more engaging and motivating for my students. I believe this module has taught me the two major aspects of project-based planning that will help me reach my goal. Without good questioning, the students are limited to where they can take a project. Also, without an appropriate assessment, students lose the motivation to continue learning. 

Finding Appropriate Assessment for My Unit Project

I mentioned before that I wanted to learn more about assessment in projects and throughout projects. This module has helped me brainstorm some strategies that I will definitely use in my unit plan. 

My training on reading strategies reminds me of the way we develop assessment strategies. When planning my project, I have to think about ways to assess students before, during, and after the project. There are so many different strategies found here at intel.com. I feel like my project will be much more developed with these strategies in place. 

I have always heard of summative and formative assessment, but I have never really understood the difference. I learned that in project-based learning, formative assessment occurs before and durning the project and summative assessment is your end-product assessment. Knowing this has helped me grasp the idea of assessment throughout the project, not just at the end. 

This week has been a busy one, but I have gained so much useful information on how to question and how to assess. I am looking forward to creating a complete and meaningful unit that I can use this school year!

Module 1 Reflection

This module has made me think about my role as an instructional designer in the following ways….

1) Becoming a facilitator instead of a "teacher"

When I look back at my lessons and unit plans, I can't really say that they are student centered. Sure, I have lessons where students are working together to build a project, but I know that isn't aways enough. I have been aware of project-based learning for about 3 years now, however I'm still uneasy and unsure. I believe becoming a facilitator instead of a lecturer is such a challenge for educators. Education has been delivered the same way for almost 100 years, yet our world has changed drastically in that time. I feel that a true instructional designer and facilitator understands the importance of student centered classes and 21st Century skills. 

2) Helping students gain their own understanding of content

Instructional designers have a scope of education that sees value in students taking ownership of their learning. This appeals to me. What could make an elementary student more engaged in math than applying math to something in which they are interested? If students can gain a perspective on a specific topic or standard that relates to them, they will have a deeper understanding of the subject matter. Aiding students in their own journey of learning is definitely the role I would like to play as an instructional designer. 

3) Assessment Challenges

One of my biggest fears of project-based planning is knowing when and how to assess student learning. The Intel Education eReader and the Project-Based Interactive Program have definitely been great resources to help tackle this challenge. I learned more about formative assessment and how important it is in a project-based lesson. I even learned that quizzes and quick assessment checks are okay to use in a project-based lesson. I still need to continue researching ways to do formative assessment. In my unit plan for this class, I will try to develop ways I can assess students throughout the project, not just at the end.