This week, I learned that I’m not great at “playing” and
exploring when I’m tired. It’s been a long week of grading graphing tests (which
I JUST finished and can actually send home this week!) and wrangling my own
tired, grumpy kids. Thank heavens for the 3-day weekend! I enjoyed playing and
exploring Ozobots and Osmo with my buddy, Rachel. Perhaps I need to bring out
my Ozobot and try to figure out ways I can tie it into my instruction. We don’t
have iPads in our third grade classrooms, but I’m sure that if I bring the
Ozobot to school, I can convince some of my students to download the Ozobot
apps on their iPads once we begin the BYOT adventures in a month or so.
I understand the usefulness of using affordance analysis
on any technology that we bring into the classroom. This exercise in trying to
read the article and figure out how to analyze affordances on my own when I had
a very shaky grasp of affordances was stressful and challenging. I created a
chart on my own, but I’m not sure it’s the best format. From this, I think I’ve
learned to make sure my students have enough background knowledge before
sending them off on tasks. I’m sure that with practice, I will get better at
this analysis process, but for the first time, it was challenging. I would like
to work through a couple of these with a partner – as we’ve discussed in
previous weeks, more brains working together is better! I feel the same way
about the Lesson Designing. I’m sure with practice, it will become easier, but
having to change how I think about our concepts and standards is taking a
little longer than I was expecting. Perhaps it’s like learning a new language,
and the more we practice it, the more fluent we become.
The idea of students as designers is a unique way to
think about education and design. We design a set-up where we give the students
resources, tools, background information, and a challenge, and they construct their
understanding and meaning. My activity where the students researched statistics
and wrote letters to our Congress representatives and the Governor were not
originally planned that way. We were discussing a problem – kids can’t vote,
but they have concerns and opinions they wanted to share. The students figured
out ways we could communicate those opinions, and I gave background information
on how to research, where to look for addresses, and how to write persuasive
letters. I facilitated more than taught, and that was fun because the students
were truly engaged. When we received our letter back with the official U.S. Representative
seal on it, the kids (and parents) were thrilled! Typing it out and evaluating
it now, I can see how I could turn most of it into a lesson design using the
S-P-D, AeCTS, and ABCS formats…
We are all still learning! By the end of this program I don’t think we will look at a lesson/SOL/unit we have done or others have done that we won't use a mental check list on all of these principles and then turn around and make it better.
ReplyDeleteFor your graphing unit if you would get your hands on some ozobots next year name have students plan different plots on a graph then have another student put those plots on the graph and connect them with blue, black, green, or red thick sharpie markers and see if the ozobot can follow it.
I too am struggling with how to balance giving students more power to create when a lot of them, like you said, "need a lot." We've seen first hand how great it makes class when we get to make things on our own, but we're adults and can handle that task. What about the students who aren't in control of themselves, and who aren't able to give their attention and effort to an assignment? Definitely an important question you brought up!
ReplyDeleteI have to second Ellen’s statement - We are all still learning! I’m so thankful that the pressure of doing it (lesson design) at 100% has been removed - as Priscilla has stated she doesn’t believe in grades, it has made it easier for me to try things and be okay with not being right. We are in the learning zone - not the performance zone as a TED talk we watched at our last staff meeting discussed https://www.ted.com/talks/eduardo_briceno_how_to_get_better_at_the_things_you_care_about#t-18638
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher I have to not only apply it to myself but also to my students. I see my students all the time, more in the beginning of the year, afraid to even make a guess because they don’t know me well enough to feel comfortable making a mistake. As we’ve embraced growth mindset this year I’ve found my students to become bigger risk takers because they know they are expected to be perfect. I wish I could remove the pressure of grades or the SOL test from the students because I bet it would create bigger risk takers and enhance their learning opportunities.