My Journey Continues

Well my journey is truly continuing.... I have really enjoyed putting the pieces together to make a 21st century lesson.  I have decided to push through to the the Leader course and see what I can do....

The Past 9 weeks-  Over the past 9 weeks I have really learned that I like activities that use the 21st century competencies.  It makes everything way more interesting and gives the activities a greater sense of purpose.  I really took that to heart and thought about what my students would like and tried to incorporate it into my teaching.  I was able to put a name and process on what I enjoyed as a learner and use it in my classroom.

Insights to student learning- I found that with some extra planning we would be able really get more done at a higher level of learning.  The activities were more meaningful and purposeful and really more enjoyable for my class.  They have been very excited to work on the activities.

The future of my teaching-  I will definitely use the competencies to drive my instruction.  These are the skills that my students need to be successful.   After all, problem solving, technology and collaborating are skills that make us more successful as teachers.  Why would we not teach the skills to our students?  

Math Webinar

I tried several of the math sites with my class and I found that I liked the Matific site the best.   I liked several of the activities.  They were fun practice for my students.  The site narrows down the activity by math publisher but I found none of the activities were specific to them.   I also used some of the worksheets as the Activboard stop in my math rotations.  The students had fun using them to practice fluency.

Science Webinar

As I stated in my last post, my awesome partner Amy and I incorporated the webinars together with our final project. We are studying Cycles in Nature as our Core Knowledge unit. We are currently on the life cycle of a plant.  We decided to incorporate the into the NGSS and make a big unit.  We used a site from the webinar called Science Kids to model the conditions a plant needs to grow.

http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/gamesactivities/plantsgrow.html

The simulation had the students using varying amounts of heat and water to make the plant grow. We did it as a whole class.  The only directions I gave were on the basic controls of the game.  The first student's attempt was not successful and the students had to use the information they were given to adapt their method.  It took about 10 kids but they were able to get the plant to live .   It was a great activity not only for the scientific principle but also the great sense of teamwork it brought out in the students.

Learning Team Experience

 As I stated in some of my other posts, I really enjoyed the experience of working on my collaborative project with my partner Amy. I think this was a great experience for my kids as well as for myself.  It was really fun to see how all the pieces fit together and we were able to incorporate so many things in a short amount of time.    I was also amazed with just a little bit of extra planning how I could really extend my students into the 21st-century competencies. I have to admit I often come to some of these projects thinking that my second graders are going to have a really hard time with it but once I get into it I'm always pleasantly surprised by the growth they're able to make.

 Amy and I were able to use each of the 21st-century competencies to varying degrees.  In the link below you'll see a graphic showing you what we did with each of them in our project.   I definitely see a need for these coughing to seize to be in my every day lessons. I am especially fond of that self-regulation one in which the students have to make their own decisions and modifications to their work.  I think that this is something that as adults we do but we don't ever get instruction on how to do it as children. I will be using this when implementing the project Amy and I created together in my classroom. The students will have to adjust their directions for how to take care of their plant in the experiment. It will be good for them to decide for themselves what changes they need to make versus me just telling them what they need to do. I am really looking forward to seeing their growth.   



https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzaQDQgi3v6bamNIcjhZdmx3WGM/view?usp=sharing

Google Search Webinar

I really had a lot of fun watching the google search webinar.  I really liked the question of the day challenge.  My (own) kids came in while I was doing this and got sent out of my room so I could finish my challenge!!!!!
My wonderful team partner Amy and I thought we would incorporate the Google Search and Science webinars into our 21st century final project.   My students have not had a lot of experience with searching in the lab so we decided to really focus on the how to of searching for second graders.  We focused our search on "How to keep a plant alive"  to go with our final project.  We chose this because we are currently working on the Core Knowledge Cycles in Nature.  This is also the unit for my SLO  ;).

We began by talking about what we should enter in the search.  We started with plants.  The students noticed they were getting a lot of pictures and general information on plants.  We talked about how to refine our search to get the results we needed.  Someone suggested we use the title of the project so we all entered "How to keep a plant alive",  We got a lot of great results but the reading was bogging them down.  We then added video to the search and voila.... we had research!  They students then worked with their partners to find a video that had the information they needed to design their lesson.
My students were collaborating by making substantive decisions together AND constructing knowledge  as the lesson was interdisciplinary  (Core Knowledge ELA, Writing, and Science) AND real world problem solving by working on a substantive real world problem AND using technology for learning since it was required for constructing knowledge AND let's not forget  later on they will have to self regulate when they have to revise their work based on feedback and skilled communication when they provide the evidence of their lesson!!!!

Wheeww... so many wonderful things!! Thanks partner Amy!!!!!!

Real World Problem Solving

Problem solving is such an important skill.  Today my student were working on a collaboration activity.  They had a little difficulty with their problem solving.  I would not solve their problems for them which was clearly not what they wanted.  The first "floor" of the elevator requires an activity's primary purpose to be problem solving.  Students need to learn how to answer real world problem solving situations so they can build upon their skills.  Education has moved away from question and answer learning to problem solving.  I can't say that my students are working on substantive real-world problems but they are at a good starting point.

Use of Technology for Learning

I think the use of technology for learning is the topic that I am really the most excited about.   I think this is really the skill we as teachers need to push our students in.  We need to take the computer class instruction from how to type and how to change fonts to how to use technology successfully and productively in the classroom. 

I learned many great ideas for incorporating technology.  I really like the idea of students taking the responsibility for researching and planning the execution of their projects.  I also like that they are required to construct their own knowledge.  I really feel that these self driven technology skill will be of the greatest benefit to students. 

That being said, I need to incorporate more technology during my activities.  I use my ActivBoard but I really have gotten away from the students using the technology and seem to be using the sage on the stage method.  I need to empower my students to take a greater roll and to direct their own learning.