The last eight weeks have flown by. Heidi Morgan is the instructor for
Assessing and Improving Student Achievement with Technology and she is
simply amazing. As a teacher herself, she has and is implementing what we
are learning in this course with her students. It was easy to talk with her about
the challenges we face as educators when introducing new technology with
our students. She rocks!
An article that stands out to me is “Chart Students’ Growth with Digital
Badges,” by Kristin Fontichiaro and Angela Elkordy. This is an article from
module 4 where we had to create digital badges. The article states that “In
many ways, digital badges resemble Scouting’s merit badges: They symbolize
levels of achievement, honor, status or recognition.” The article goes on to
discuss how badges help students to take ownership of their own learning by
monitor themselves. The part that stands out the most is motivating learners.
Motivating learners is the part of the article that stands out the most. Currently,
I have a group of students that are learning phonemes and phonics skills.
They need this in order to progress in reading and writing; however, it is
difficult to get them to buy in. The idea of digital badges will not only help with
their buy in, but also allow them to know what is needed to ‘achieve” the next
badge.
All of the activities in this module stand out; although, the activity that first comes to mind is the “Genius Hour” activity from module 5. The concept of Genius Hour is to give students time within the school day or week to work on a project that is interesting to them. The idea of this is difficult because when given time to work independently students will often use it to play games or socialize. Although, when pairing Genius Hour with Project Based Learning then this becomes totally amazing. In module 5 I chose to learn knitting. It is something that has been on my bucket list. It is not easy, but I am still working at becoming better at it.
I am continuing to grow as a connected educator by continuing to build upon the lessons I am currently using with my students in order to incorporate the technology I am learning about. For instance, I use google slides with my reading groups incorporating word sorts and vocabulary to front load prior to the lesson. The downfall is that I have to share the lesson in its editing form and the students spend time changing the font and background instead of completing the tasks. Within EEND 679 we learned about pear-deck and how to incorporate it with google slides. I have begun making some lessons using the add on pear-deck and the students are limited with changing the backgrounds because the lesson is in present mode.
As the next class approaches, I look forward to learning more about technology; as well as, learning from my colleagues. I gain so much insight from learning from my peers, they are truly wonderful people to learn with!! Differentiating and adapting lessons to suit my students learning styles in order to reach them is rewarding because I get to see them grow as confident learners.
References
Figure 2f from: Poorani J (2015) Two new species of Scymnini (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) from Karnataka, India. Biodiversity Data Journal 3: E5296. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.3.e5296. (n.d.). doi:10.3897/bdj.3.e5296.figure2f
I like your comparison to the merit badges from scouting. For me scouting has been a mixed bag. My older son had a good den leader one year though, who had the meetings right after school and knocked out one merit badge per meeting. She read up on the activities ahead of time, planned everything out, and executed. It was a good experience for my son, and the merit badges were a part of it.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed the genius hour assignment. I don't know how to knit, but I do like to sew with my sewing machine.